New Zealand Champion Josh Walsh won the Sentry Hill Motel North Island Stockcar Champs on the weekend. Photo/ Matt Julian
New Zealand Champion Josh Walsh won the Sentry Hill Motel North Island Stockcar Champs on the weekend. Photo/ Matt Julian
Just two weeks after winning the New Zealand Stockcar Championship in Auckland, Stratford competitor Josh Walsh won the North Island Stockcar Championship at MG Taranaki Stratford Speedway.
This win proved that he is a front-runner and formidable force in the Stockcar class this season. Over 120 competitors rolled into Taranakiover the weekend to take part in the Sentry Hill Motel Sponsored event, with drivers, their crews, families and supporters coming from all over the North Island.
Racing started on Friday night with competitors in five groups racing to make the top 25 to proceed to the finals with the final five final spots being filled via a repechage on night two.
Just to qualify is an achievement and Josh took his qualifying night racing in his stride, being the highest qualifier in his group overall.
He won his first heat from grid one, coming home in third place in heat two from grid 13 and then placing second in heat three from grid 24, a huge move of over 20 positions through the field.
Josh drew grid 10 for the first heat of the three 15-lap heat finals and made his way through the field to win the race.
He then moved forward 15 places in heat two to come home 10th from grid 25 and was sitting third in the leaderboard overall with 50 points heading into the third and final heat.
Local speedster Tyler Walker was sitting at the top of the leaderboard with 59 points while Wellington racer Keegan Levien was second on 54 points.
The third heat contained plenty of contact racing and hard hits (which is fully permitted in Stockcar racing) as drivers were working on the track to help their clubmates to get to the podium.
The North Island Stockcar Championship Podium, from left: 3rd place Keegan Levien, 1st place Josh Walsh, event sponsor Nola from Sentry Hill Motel, 3rd place Tyler Walker. Photo/ Matt Julian
Josh again finished in 10th place, giving him points total of 80 and enough to win the championship by a two-point margin from Keegan.
Tyler Walker suffered from some on-track attention and dropped back down the leaderboard to third place overall. Two more Taranaki drivers made the event a real Taranaki affair (with the exception of Keegan) with Bevan Phillips finishing fourth and Taylor Patene driving exceptionally well to finish in fifth place.
Bevan raced his way into the championship the hard way, making it through the last chance repechage from a grid 22 start.
The King of the Mountain Champs, which is the second-tier event for the next 30 cars on points from the qualifying night, ran a duplicate format to the North Island Championship.
Ethan Levien (brother to Keegan), dominated the racing in this group and recorded third and sixth places in the first two races.
This was followed by a race win in the third to win the champs by a nine-point margin from Kihikihi racer and former National Streetstock Champion Chris Shingleton. Stratford driver Mason Woods nabbed third place, just a single point behind Shingleton.
The next race meeting at MG Taranaki Stratford Speedway is on January 27 and 28 and will feature the Signright New Zealand Midget Championship.
