Returning champ welcomes challenge

Former national super saloon car champion Dean Waddell (Tauranga) says it's the high quality of competition that has brought him back to the speedway track after a break of nearly two years.
Waddell debuted a new Phantom Corvette in March and in its second outing at Baypark on Saturday night the twice New Zealand champ drove to victory in the season-ending BOP Champs.
Waddell led home Karl Hanlon in the final with Russell Donovan finding some pace in the final to drive up to third place for an all Tauranga podium.
After his break from the sport Waddell is enjoying the challenge of a new car and some new competition.
"We did some good fishing and found there was life outside of speedway. But the team and my family still had a lot of enthusiasm for speedway," says Waddell.
"One of the main reasons for coming back is the quality of the competition. The newer guys like Craig Cardwell, Ben Harding and Matt Smith are driving well and that makes it interesting."
The new car built by Bryan Fraser Engineering has been quick from its first outing and has already won three races.
"That was just my sixth race in the car," said Waddell after his BOP title win.
"We're happy with its steerability and the way it hooks up. I'm still building up confidence with what the car is doing and I'm not back to driving at the best of my ability yet."
Progress should come quickly with another outing tomorrow night at Huntly's Speedfest charity meeting to be followed by a three-meeting Easter campaign in the South Island in preparation for next summer's major events.
Most of Rotorua's top stockcar drivers showed up for Saturday's season finale chasing the BOP title and boosting the grid to 32 cars. The result was some of the hardest hitting stockcar racing seen in some time.
Recent North Island title winner Damian Orr (Rotorua) was in contention chasing Tauranga's Stacy Keach for most of the final until a well-timed attack by Ryan Smyth (Te Puke) spun Orr and cost him half a lap. That left Keach in the clear to lead home Rotorua's Douglas Stanaway.
The saloon cars completed their rain interrupted La-Z-Boy Series and for fourth time in five years Brent McClymont took the title.
With the format inverting the result of each race to set the grid for the next McClymont stayed out of trouble in the early races and consolidated his points lead while several multi-car tangles affected the hopes of other front runners.
With the final lined up in points standings McClymont had pole position and after swapping the lead on the opening lap with Jeff Barron (Matamata) he raced clear to lead home Paul Cressy (Matamata) and Michelle Wymer (Tirau).
Barron finished second overall ahead of Cressy and Wymer.
Tauranga's Rodney Wood won the BOP sprint car title after a battle in the early laps with Colin Entwisle (Mt Maunganui) and James Dahm (Tokoroa) ran the extreme outside line to move through and finish second.
Phillips goes 7th
Honda rider Michael Phillips (Mt Maunganui) has climbed to seventh place in the Australian Motocross Nationals.
With Suzuki's Cody Cooper (Papamoa) sidelined due to injured ribs, Phillips was only BOP rider in action at Sunday's third round of the Aussie Nationals at Raymond Terrace near Newcastle, NSW.
A day of mixed fortunes aboard his Carlton Dry Honda Thor Racing CRF450 saw Phillips record ninth, 11th, 13th and third places in the four MX1 races to earn seventh overall for the day and a share of seventh place in the championship standings.
Kiwi Josh Coppins (Yamaha) won the third round and has moved into the championship lead with a nine point advantage over Kawasaki racer Dean Ferris. Round four is at Murray Bridge, South Australia, on May 8.
Rally test tough
The opening round of the New Zealand Rally Championship at Dunedin last weekend proved a tough test for the Tauranga Ford Fiesta crew of Phil Campbell and Venita Fabbro.
An alternator failure in the third stage on Friday night saw them stranded for more than an hour and although they could restart on Saturday morning they had exceeded maximum lateness and couldn't be classified as a leg one finisher.
Saturday went better and Campbell was the fastest NZRC 2WD competitor on three of the six stages.
"On Sunday we blew a power steer hose and lost 28 minutes in service while we fixed that," said Campbell.
"That put us behind and in the last stage we caught a car and that cost us more time.
"It wasn't an ideal start to the series but we did get some points and we showed we had some good pace by winning four stages."
Round two of the NZ Rally Champs is Rally New Zealand based at the Hampton Downs race circuit on May 7-8.
Support races
The new lineup of support races for the ITM 400 V8 Supercar event in Hamilton this weekend will see Tauranga drivers in action again on the Frankton street circuit.
Competing in the combined GT1/GT2 category will be Tauranga's Andy Greenslade with his 6.0-litre Jaguar XKR GT1 machine while in the GT2 class the triple-rotor Mazda RX7 of Tauranga's Brian Gray will be a leading contender.
The GT1/GT2 category has its first race at 9am on Saturday followed by a second at 12.58pm with race three at 10.20am on Sunday. They are non-championship events at Hamilton with drivers needing to be mindful while negotiating the concrete lined street track of the final round of the GT Racing NZ series at Taupo the following weekend.
The support race programme also includes the final national championship rounds for the BNT V8s and the V8 Utes classes.