No put-putting for hard-driving Tiger

Tiger Woods greets the 7000-strong crowd at the Huntly Speedway. Picture / Amos Chapple

One of the world's most marketable sports stars left the bubble-wrap behind when he leaped into his stockcar at Huntly last night.

And if there were any instructions from Tiger Woods' insurance company to take it easy on the rain-soaked mud track he obviously took no notice.

Clad in a red and black standard racing suit, the world's number-one golfer was just "excited for being here for Steve".

Excited, and aggressive enough to win - with a little help from his friends.

In the first race, after initially trailing the leading group, a bold manoeuvre saw his car spin and lose control.

Embarrassingly, it came to a halt in the middle of a bend, facing the wrong way, and Woods had to endure being lapped while facing his oncoming racers before he rejoined the race.

But that fearless competitive fire never died as Woods revved and raced on, speeding past several cars and - often - narrowly avoiding contact.

Until the final lap at least. Then his cheeky outside overtaking move saw him collide with another car, spin and end up on the grass in the middle of the track.

Again Woods rejoined the race, only to have another stockcar clip his left rear, sending him into another spin.

He recovered again, this time at the sedate pace his insurers may have been hoping for all along, his car barely limping to the finish.

And so race one was chalked up to former All Black captain Tana Umaga's team.

But Woods had answered the question of how would he tackle an event that could have broken every bone in his body. Fast and furious.

His attitude paid dividends in the second race, which he won, wowing the crowd with some daring driving.

Last off the tee, Woods managed to avoid a pile-up at the start before embarking on various overtaking routes, both inside and outside of his foes.

One move looked like serious trouble - for his race and all those multimillion-dollar bones - when his car was mashed into a concrete wall at speed.

But instead of stopping, Woods kept his foot flat and powered through to take the lead.

He won and to the delight of a 7000-strong, cowbell-clanging crowd emerged from his helmet with a beaming smile and not a broken bone in sight.

It all came down to a tie-breaker.

Safety issues stopped the race twice and two cars had to be pulled out.

Once again, Woods got into more scraps and survived a couple of large collisions to take third place, but Umaga's team took the honours.

"I didn't think we did that good. We lost," Woods said.

"I'll feel a bit sore tomorrow."