From workmate to defender: How Napier man won second national stockcar title

Napier driver Caleb Ireland, pictured on his home track earlier this season, is only the second driver to win the New Zealand Stockcar Championship two years in a row. Photo / John Faulkner

Hawke’s Bay driver Caleb Ireland has become only the second to win back-to-back New Zealand Stockcar Championships, giving a big thumbs-up to the only other Hawke’s Bay driver in the race.

The 23-year-old’s win on Saturday was by a single point from TAB favourite Harley Robb, the best of a 12-strong local field among the 30 drivers competing at Woodford Glen, north of Christchurch.

Riley Eathorne, from Hope, near Nelson, was three points behind in third.

Ireland’s win came 12 months after he won the title for the first time at Te Marua, near Upper Hutt, and he said he owed it to workmate, fellow Meeanee racer and protector Zane Pullen.

“Zane helped me a lot, and he did all the hard work,” Ireland said back in the Bay, where the pair run Hawke’s Bay Sheds.

That help was most important in the last of the three races, in which Ireland finished third, fourth and fourth, for a total of 82 points.

Robb had won the opener, but Ireland drove spectacularly from what might have been a forlorn start at 25 on the grid.

Robb ran eighth in race two, enabling Ireland to enter the last with a small points buffer, but needing a Hawke’s Bay chat to see how the win could be achieved.

“A couple of locals were out to get me,” he said.

Pullen had dropped back in the points, so they decided on a strategy to protect Ireland, who was starting from 11 on the grid, rather than poking the bear and trying to eliminate the leading opposition.

“He did a good job,” said Ireland, who blew the gearbox in the first two laps and had to last the race in third gear.

He reckoned someone was watching from above.

Pullen had individual finishes of 14th, 12th and 8th to claim 8th place overall.

The only previous driver to win two championships in a row was Peter Rees, of Gisborne, in 2012 and 2013.

Caleb Ireland (centre), of Napier, on Saturday night after becoming only the second driver to win back-to-back New Zealand Stockcar Championship titles.

Meanwhile, Hawke’s Bay’s biggest speedway meeting of the season will be staged this week, with 36 cars and crews in town for the New Zealand Saloons championships at Meeanee on Friday and Saturday.

The entries include defending champion and Christchurch racer Mark Osborne, targeting a record fifth title, 2024 and 2005 runner-up Chris Cowling, and fellow Tauranga driver Scott Hayward, who was third last year at Baypark.

Among others will be home-track racers Grahame Strong, who was runner-up to Osborne at Meeanee in 2016, and multi-classes national champion, and former Hawke’s Bay Magpies NPC rugby player, Jason Long.

Racing starts at 6.30pm both nights, and the Hawke’s Bay Superstock championships will be included on Saturday night with a field of 26.

Hawke’s Bay Speedway president Regan O’Brien said a crowd of about 6000 had been reached “a couple of years ago”, but he’d be “happy” with 3500-4000 this weekend.

“The weather’s coming right,” he said, hoping for continued improvement in the outlook, which has some showers forecast. “Hopefully it’ll come right.”

Ireland and Pullen won’t be racing. Their cars remain in Christchurch awaiting the drivers’ return for more racing in the south next month.

Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter, based in Napier, with more than 40 years’ experience covering news, sports and other events and issues in Hawke’s Bay.