With a field edging toward 50 cars, tomorrow night's big stock car showdown for the Harry Fredrickson Memorial Gold Cup at Baypark Speedway is shaping as the perfect curtain raiser for big holiday season events now less than a month away.
The Bay of Plenty becomes the hub of stockcar racing just after Christmas and into the New Year when Rotorua's Paradise Valley Raceway hosts the New Zealand Championship on December 27-28 followed by the NZ Grand Prix at Baypark on January 2-3.
The 49-car - and growing - field for tomorrow's Gold Cup will set the scene for those title events, with a field that includes a near-equal split of Baypark and Rotorua drivers and a few from the Huntly and Auckland tracks.
Picking favourites at big stock car events is difficult but young Rotorua driver Damian Orr boasts the impressive record of winning the main event at his last three Baypark appearances, including last season's North Island title.
Clive Stanaway, Mark Costello and Shaun Stewart are other strong challengers from Rotorua, and Rotorua-contracted Scott Fredrickson has the special incentive of trying to win the race that honours his uncle, a prime mover in the BOP stock car scene for many years.
With two feature race wins already, Tauranga's Stacy Keach has been the most successful driver at Baypark in early season racing while Ryan Hunt, Scott Hayward and Ryan Smyth have shown plenty of speed this year.
The big stock car field will be split into two groups for four 10-lap qualifying, heats with plans for a 40-car, 15-lap final.
The double-size field of stock cars and the extra qualifying races means the youth ministock class has been stood down this weekend. Super saloons, saloon cars and sprint cars complete the programme, racing starting at 7pm.
