A 48-hour rebuild of the damaged race car of Kiwi speedway team driver Lance Beale was rewarded by a win during Tuesday night's second round of the international midget car series at Western Springs.
Beale slammed into the wall during Sunday night's series opener, but bounced back to lead Tuesday night's
first United States-New Zealand race from start to finish and to race away to another win in the second race.
"It was a hard hit," said Beale. "It split the steering box in half, broke the diff and wrecked every suspension joint and shock on the car.
"By 2 am on Monday we had it all in pieces and it all went back together in the afternoon. It was a big team effort, but that [win] makes it all worthwhile."
Beale held off California's Marc DeBeaumont, with Graham Standring showing the improved pace he had been searching for with a run from grid seven to third.
In the second race, Beale cleared out to a convincing win, with team-mate Justin Insley taking second ahead of Arizona racer Jerry Coons.
Led by Beale's double success, the Kiwis had stretched an eight-point margin out to a commanding 80-57 lead.
With New Zealand champion Michael Kendall sidelined by a driveshaft failure, team reserve Matt Thompson stepped in for the third race and completed a Kiwi clean sweep.
Thompson led from flag-to-flag, with Standring and Klepper next home.
New Zealand now enjoy a 98-72 lead with three races remaining on Saturday night. Justin Insley is the leading individual, on 30 points, while Standring and Coons have 28 each. While the eight-lap teams races produced a Kiwi clean sweep, it was the Americans to the fore in an incident-packed feature race.
Coons got to the front early, using the outside groove, and stayed clear of the fracas which brought seven caution periods before 10 laps had been completed.
When the race eventually settled down it was team-mates Jay Drake and Marc DeBeaumont who led the pursuit of Arizona-based Coons.
With seven laps left DeBeaumont moved through to second spot while Graham Standring also got ahead of Drake with three laps to go.
