It's been a week since our spectacular, action-packed Opening Night - revisit the action here, thanks to Shane Hurndell and John Faulkner...

IRFAN CAPTURES HB STREETSTOCK CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE

Dontage Irfan won the first championship of the Hawke's Bay Speedway Club's 2023-24 season on Saturday night. Competing in the 17-car Hawke's Bay Streetstock Championship, Hawke's Bay's Irfan, won the title by one point from a multiple winner of the title, clubmate Brent Redington. Fellow host track driver Thomas McEwan was third, four points behind Redington. Irfan posted two second placings and a third in his heats.

Superstocks provided fast and furious racing over three qualifying heats leading into the feature, and last race of the night. There was little contact, with 16 locals and 8 visitors keen to see if their winter projects were race-ready. Among the locals there were four new drivers, 38B Scott Gallop, ex Stockcars, 71B Jack Cunningham, ex Rotorua Ministocks, 89B Brandon Duncan in the ex 87B Thomas Stanaway car and veteran 27B Shane Warner back after several years off, in the ex Steve Hampton 66H Tri-rail car.

The three heats were run to determine grid positions for the feature race, with the top points scorer starting the feature off Grid one, second on grid two etc.

Race 1 ended with 1st to 46B Quinn Ryan, 2nd 16B Brett Loveridge, 3rd 66A Randal Tarrant, 4th 10G Peter Rees, 5th 99B Jacob Buckrell, 6th 57V Dylan Marshall.

Race 2 - 1st to 7A Shay Hambling, 2nd 235G Regan Penn, 3rd 46B Quinn Ryan, 4th 99B Jacob Buckrell, 5th 2NZG Josh Prentice, 6th 77G Sam Hughes.

Race 3 - 1st to 235G Regan Penn, 2nd 16B Brett Loveridge, 3rd 46B Quinn Ryan, 4th 7A Shay Hambling, 5th 422B Dylan Ashton, 6th 99B Jacob Buckrell.

Points after the three heats were: 1st 46B Quinn Ryan 86 points, 2nd= 235G Regan Penn 81, 2nd= 7A Shay Hambling 81, 4th 99B Jacob Buckrell 78, 5th 422B Dylan Ashton 73, 6th 81G Jason Jones 66.

The 10 lap feature saw 235G Regan Penn power through off Grid 2 to take the win after passing Ryan mid-race, with 7A Shay Hambling taking 2nd after also passing Ryan, who finished in third place, 4th was 57V Dylan Marshall, 5th 16B Brett Loveridge and 6th was 99B Jacob Buckrell. The pace was hot with Penn recording fastest lap of 17.883 seconds.

Thanks to our eight visitors who boosted the ranks.

Not a good night for 10G Peter Rees who suffered electrical issues in his brand new car all night, and had three DNF's. 76B Ben Milne, last season's top points scorer and Best All Rounder blew his diff at the start of Race 1 and ended his night on the trailer. 66A Randal Tarrant ended Race 1 with a blown gearbox and was out for the rest of the night also.

With the NZ Superstock Champs here in January, we are expecting to have visitors here at most meetings leading up to the Champs, checking out the track and dialing in car set-ups

There was an awesome line up of stockcars for the much anticipated opening night, with a field of 29 cars. Race 1 saw the 91b of Zayne Pullan start off the front after only dragging his car off the trailer from last year the day before, take an all the way victory followed home by our only visitor 98g Bryce Simpson with third going to the 7b of Bradley Penn. Race 2 saw an outstanding drive from 7b Bradley Penn, he is really coming to grips with his new car showing good pace. Second going to the ever reliable and hard charging 261b Ethan Anderson followed home by 56b Cameron Taylor. Good to have Cameron back with B on his car. Race 3 is where things started to warm up with 56b deciding to get some blocking practise in on the 7b. The 261b walled the 28b Logan Hurley quite spectacularly. Some real good action in race 3 taken out by the quick 85b of Willy Stevenson with second going to 68b Ben Darroch and 41b Cameron Swift 3rd. All in all a great start to the season by the Stockcars with a big number of them showing great pace.

Four Palmerston North visitors, one from Gisborne and two locals made up the Saloon class field. They produced good clean racing with no major incidents. Hawke's Bay's Johnny Browne also took his Super Saloon out for a couple of strops.

Race 1 was won by 8p Mike Denham.

Race 2 was won by 18b Jeremy Browne.

Race 3 was won by 16g Sean Robertson.

Jeremy also had the fastest lap in all 3 races.

Auckland's national champion Aaron Humble dominated the 22-strong TQ class. Humble posted two firsts, a second and fourth placings. Kihi Kihi's Regan Tyler won Heat One which saw the Hawke's Bay contracted pair of Ryan MacGregor and Scott McIntosh finish second and third respectively. Tyler's clubmate Shaun Cooke won Heat Two. Humble was second and Aucklander Dayna Lowry third. Humble took out Heat Three. Hawke's Bay's two-time national champion Duane Todd was second and MacGregor third. Hawke's Bay's Ben Donovan won't forget Opening Night in a hurry after his spectacular roll.

In the Sidecar class visiting Kihi Kihi crew 4K Chuck Gannon and Daryl Pearce won the first race before the Meeanee pair of Justin Lincoln and Tim Beaver won the next two taking out the overall win for the evening. Stockcar converts, 17B Nick and Caleb Holland produced good rides in their debut in the class. Another Bay crew, 33B Lance Beets and Josh Henderson had a spin in their new bike. Bill Napier and Kayla Meehan on 88B had a consistent night with three thirds and third overall. Unfortunately 27B, Craig Boaler and Ann Plummer, had bike issues and never made it to the start line.

Remember the Hawke's Bay Speedway Club's next meeting will be the Guy Fawkes Spectacular on November 4.

- Shane Hurndell