Return to Moore Park Speedway

After almost two years away, last Saturday I managed to get back to my favourite speedway track. It was great!

The road was well signposted (lots of volunteers go out the night before and set up these signs all over Christchurch – they are a dedicated lot at Moore Park!

The main event was the South Island championships, the hot favourite Grant Tregonning. He had apparently cleaned up some good international riders in a recent event and was riding very well.   He lived up to his reputation, winning the event convincingly.  Here he is in action:

Or, from a different viewpoint:

I caught up with a young rider who I had followed through his junior years, when he was almost too small for his helmet.  Now he is 15, riding against the seniors. He finished third in these SI Championships.

Anthony Knowles competed in Europe last year, representing New Zealand at the FIM Youth Gold Trophy event in the Czech Republic.  There is an excellent report of Anthony’s trip here, written by Lionel Green.  It gave me quite a buzz to see that this very talented rider is continuing in the sport.  He has a great future.

Andrew Aldridge used to clean up most of the races at Moore Park a couple of years ago, at least amongst the NZ riders.  He wasn’t dominate last weekend, having to put up with a lot of dirt and cinders from Grant, even though he fought hard.  After several seasons racing in the UK, I thought his style had changed.  He used to spend a lot of time hanging a long way off the bike, now he was more compact.  Faster too, of course.

The sidechairs were of course racing.  Here Lionel Green shows how the intelligent use of a swinger can prevent scratches and dents, as he cuts in a bit too close:

He eventually had problems with his new rig, but managed to borrow one from another competitor.  Here’s that other competitor, still smiling.  Moments later his rig ground to a halt and the mood changed!

There’s always action with the sidechairs:

I’m currently on the road, heading to Dunedin and the Otago Peninsular.  This is my first attempt to handle all the post-processing on my old laptop, so the quality is only ‘adequate’.  I’ll put up a lot more pictures from that meeting on my pBase site when I get back in a couple of weeks.