Gisborne Speedway Club watching race with interest

FINGERS CROSSED: Speedway meetings planned for the tracks at Huntly and Whanganui tonight might well pave the way for the Gisborne Speedway Club to host meetings for the rest of the season, notably the big Rees Race Cars Challenge in late February, with more than 50 cars expected. In this picture, 2NZ Jason Long gets a nudge from 38M Ross Ashby.File picture by Liam Clayton

Gisborne Speedway Club will have eyes on the Whanganui and Huntly speedways this weekend. Those clubs are racing tonight, confident they can fit within the Covid-19 red traffic-light requirements.

If it all works out well at those two tracks tonight, Gisborne club members will press ahead with preparations for their next meeting on February 12.

The local club hopes to run the Ashley Scott Memorial event for stockcars that night, along with best-pairs racing for stocks, production saloons, youth ministocks and sidechairs.

“I’ve been speaking to the promoters at Huntly and Whanganui, and they both think they can operate this weekend under the red-light system,” Gisborne club president Clyde McGrory said.

“If it works out OK for them, we’ll give it a go, too, on the 12th.

“The promoters are really confident they can tick all the health boxes tonight.”

McGrory said they were going to divide the crowd into groups of a hundred, each group with its own toilet facilities, and all the drivers and fans fully vaccinated.

“We could do all of that at our track.

“Good on Whanganui and Huntly for having a go. No one else at speedway tracks around the country has braved the red-light system at this stage, so we’ll just see what happens this weekend.

“It if all works out OK, the door opens for the rest of the season in terms of our ability to run speedway meetings in Gisborne.”

McGrory said it had been difficult to keep the momentum going so far this disjointed season because of the stop-start nature of it.

“A lot of competitors are getting frustrated at not being able to run their vehicles, but that frustration is felt by everyone,” he said.

“It was fortunate that Rotorua were able to run the World 240 Invitational Superstock Championship last weekend.

“They got in just in time.”

The title was won by Hawke’s Bay driver Jason Long, who looks set to join the superstocks “G” team next season.

McGrory said their great hope was that the weekend’s meetings in Whanganui and Huntly paved the way for the big superstocks meeting in Gisborne at the end of February.

At last count more than 50 cars had registered for the Rees Race Cars Challenge over two nights.

“We are certainly as keen as mustard to get that meeting under way.”