Tauranga’s Chris Cowling has extended his unbeaten start to the speedway season into the month of December with a commanding win in Baypark Speedway’s annual Prestige Pools South Pacific Super Saloon Car Championship on Saturday night.
Cowling won both of his heat races and elected to start from the outside of the front row in the 25-lap final.
He was beaten off the start by Rotorua’s Damian Orr but built his momentum to move into the lead on the ninth lap and was able to control two restarts before clinching his fifth South Pacific win.
“Damian was fast at the start, and I was second-guessing myself for a little while,” says Cowling.
“It took a few laps for the greasiness on the top line to clean off, and then I was able to build some momentum and get rolling. The car got better and better, and I set my fastest lap on the last lap.”
There was some intense racing for the podium honours involving Orr, Tauranga’s Trent Amrein and Hawke’s Bay racer Steve Flynn.
Amrein made a fast start from grid seven to grab third spot in the early laps, but Flynn was building speed to grab third spot at mid-distance and then battled with Orr before completing a final lap pass.
For Auckland racer Michael Pickens, an impressive drive in the 20-lap Sprint Car feature delivered an overdue win.
“I’ve been told it’s been over a year since I’ve won a feature away from Western Springs, and it definitely feels like that long,” Pickens says.
Pickens says his team had worked hard to find minor issues with the car.
“We’ve been struggling for a while, but the car is a lot better now. We made a few small changes and found one thing that wasn’t right on the car. It’s good to understand why we weren’t as good as we should have been.”
There were celebrations for Katikati teenager Cruz Hodson, who turned some promising drives at recent meetings into a strong Sprint Car feature race effort.
He battled with Aucklander Ryan O’Connor for second spot for most of the race and survived a brush with the Turn 2 wall on the final lap to claim the runner-up spot.
Another return to form came from Tauranga’s Cole Wood, who started deep in the pack and passed his father, Rodney, on the last lap to complete the podium.
Tauranga’s Luke McClymont won the F2 Midget Car feature. The young Tauranga racer has now won in four different classes at Baypark Speedway – Youth Mini Stocks, Six Shooters, and Midget Cars being the other categories.
He led home Troy Jeffries in the 20-lapper with Brynn Jackson completing the podium.
The Super Stock Double Trouble Pairs contest was won the duo of national champ Todd Hemingway and Scott Tennant with a 5-point margin over Luke Alderdice and Dylan Towler.
The top individual performer on the night, with a second placing and two thirds, was Waihi’s Ross Ashby.
The next Baypark Speedway event is the December 27 Bay Super Stars meeting. It’s headlined by the 30-lap international Midget Car feature with recently crowned United States Auto Club National Midget Car Champion Cannon McIntosh joining the field, and the third annual Hokey Ashby Super Stock Memorial is also on the programme.
Header Image: Jessica Barnes/Blissful Photography
