Motorsport: Drizzle fails to ease Williams' grip in speedway battle

Hayden Williams, front, is battling Brad Mosen during the the Barry Butterworth Memorial at WXC Speedway - Western Springs in February. Photo / James Selwyn

Auckland midget car driver Hayden Williams survived early pressure to win the Heritage Shield feature race at WxC Speedway-Western Springs on Saturday night.

In drizzling rain, the 23-year-old executed an impressive slide-job passing manoeuvre on the previous week's winner, Brad Mosen, to claim the lead just four laps into the race. He then endured multiple pressure-mounting restarts as other cars were involved in incidents, before finally settling in and driving to victory.

"It was hard work on those restarts, I just couldn't seem to get the car going off the bottom [of the race track] and Brad kept getting the jump on me," said Williams.

"We even had a little touch there on one of them but that's just good, hard racing on an awesome track."

Once clear, Williams moved to the high side of the circuit where he was untouchable, leaving the rest of the field battling furiously behind him.

"The track was awesome tonight, you could run on the bottom or the top which creates some great racing for the fans," he said.

Chris McCutcheon came from nowhere to claim second position, passing Shane Alach and Dave Gick in one corner as the two veterans kept each other preoccupied, while Mosen slipped back to seventh.

In the sprint car feature, current 2NZ Dean Brindle retained the Heritage Shield title he won last year, leading from start to finish.

Pre-race favourite Jonathan Allard went up in smoke and was forced to retire to the in-field, allowing Jamie McDonald to breathe a little easier as he crossed the line second; fellow Aucklander Daniel Eggleton was third.

Scott Baker won his second TQ feature race and Neville McNabb took out the F2 midget event.