Speedway: Wood underdone with title on line

Rodney Wood defends his New Zealand sprint car title at Palmerston North at the weekend.

Tauranga's Rodney Wood admits to being underdone as he prepares to defend his New Zealand Sprint Car title at Palmerston North's Robert Holden International Speedway on Saturday.

Illness meant he missed the first part of this season, with his first on-track appearance at Baypark Family Speedway's December 29 meeting.

"I'd rather have had more seat time - a bit more time to experiment with set-up and try out some new ideas," Wood said. "An extra three or four meetings would have been good and we'd have been to Palmerston once or twice more as well."

On the upside, last Saturday's meeting was the only one of six at Baypark he has failed to finish on the podium, results that included a feature win on January 31. He also won last season's Manawatu Sprint Car Championships at Saturday's title venue and finished well in his last three visits to Palmerston North.

"We raced there about three weeks ago and finished second," he said. "I enjoy the track and go well there and am confident of a good result. If there's no carnage or bad luck, we have a good chance."

Not a favourite with all drivers, the Palmerston North track is narrow - especially when compared with Baypark - and title meetings have had their fair share of crashes there.

"But you need to put three good races together to pull it off and it's probably fair to say you've got to be on the front row (for the title-deciding race) as it's hard to pass. So you need a bit of luck in qualifying."

Wood is also still not completely over the effects of illness.

"I'm maybe 95 per cent - certainly not 100 per cent."

His final run-out before the championship at Baypark Family Speedway last Saturday did not go as well as he had hoped.

"I was struggling a bit - the track caught us out a bit. In hindsight, we might have done a few things a bit differently. We qualified fifth and ran fifth all night."

Wood won the first of his New Zealand titles in Cromwell in 2010 and, between then and his second win at the same track in 2014, the title was held by American-based professional racers Jonathan Allard, Sammy Swindell and Pete Murphy.

Only Allard will be in this year's field, although another American, Ricky Logan, will also line up in injured Greg Pickerill's car.

Both have been identified as threats by Wood.

"Probably Jonathan Allard is the strongest competition, but there's also Ricky Logan who goes well at Palmy and had a good night at Baypark (on Saturday)."

As far as the New Zealand contenders go, former champions and current 2NZ Dean Brindle (Hamilton) and 3NZ Jamie McDonald (Auckland), New Zealand Sprint Car Grand Prix winner Daniel Eggleton (Auckland) and North Island title-holder Stephen Taylor (Wellington) are all in with a shout.

"Those are the six guys who could be in the hunt."

Wood transferred his driving skills to the sprint car class in 2006 after 10 years in the super-stock ranks where, despite coming close, he never managed to climb on to the top podium step at a national championship event.

He said he now had no ambitions to go back to the full-contact class to rectify that situation, but that attempting to get the 1NZ plate in another class was not out of the question.

"At some stage, I might have a go in another class as a bit of fun - I enjoy sprint cars, but if the opportunity came along to drive a modified or a super saloon, I might give it a go."