Katikati sprint car star wins 20-lap feature race

Ayrton Hodson (28) passes Dean Cooper on his way to a career-first feature race victory.

Tauranga’s Sam Waddell raced to his second North Island super saloon car title at Baypark Speedway on Saturday night.

It was a clean sweep by Waddell, who won both of his heat races and elected to start from the outside of the front row in the 25-lap final alongside Aucklander Craig Cardwell.

But it wasn’t the straightforward win in the Roadster Auto Rewards-sponsored title that the results suggest. Waddell’s team needed to find a temporary fix for an engine oil leak and the young Tauranga racer had some good fortune on the opening lap of the race.

Waddell lost ground in the first corner but was able to retake his front-row position when a pile-up required a full restart.

“I was lucky on the first lap. They had watered the top and I half spun,” says Waddell.

With a clean restart, Waddell was never headed while Cardwell finished second and a closing-laps battle had Grant Flynn (Napier) pip Peter Bengston (Palmerston North) by a margin of 0.017s as they took the chequered flag side by side.

Waddell says it’s been a gradual process for his team learning to develop the US-built car previously campaigned by Mick Quin.

“You learn every meeting and when we started off, we weren’t quite on top of the car. We’ve ironed out a few issues and we’re steadily getting it better,” says Waddell.

While Waddell’s learning curve is a steady one, Katikati teenager Ayrton Hodson is on accelerated climb in the sprint car ranks. Hodson delivered on some promising recent performances as he powered to an impressive win in the 20-lap feature race.

Hodson, 18, started from the second row of the grid and worked his way past top qualifier Dean Cooper (Taupō) and then made passes on former national champion Dean Brindle (Hamilton) and Jamie Larsen (Kāpiti) to clinch a career-first win.

“It’s so cool to race in that sort of company and be able to pass drivers like Dean and Jamie,” Hodson says.

“We had a good set-up on the car at Kihikihi last weekend and other than some taller gears, we didn’t change it for Baypark.”

Second-placed Larsen was quick to congratulate Hodson on his breakthrough win, while Max Guilford grabbed third place when he passed Brindle on the final lap.

After a close battle in the early laps of the F2 midget car feature, it was James Earl who found an outside line to edge away to a clear win ahead of Tylar Browne and Corbin Anderson in the 20-lapper.

Rotorua’s Cohen Wright set the pace in a big youth mini stock field with three wins from three starts to take the overall honours ahead of Flynn Ashton (Rotorua) and Rhyan Dobson (Stratford).

Racing action continues this weekend (December 9) with the Bay of Twenty event, which features the BOP championships for sprint cars, super saloons and F2 midgets.