• Hynd takes out Noel Powell Memorial Stockcar event

Hynd takes out Noel Powell Memorial Stockcar event

It was appropriate Hawke's Bay's Roydon Hynd should win the inaugural Noel Powell Memorial stockcar event at Meeanee Speedway's final meeting of the season last night.

Hynd, 22, who won the 17-car event by two points from clubmate Caleb Ireland, works with Powell's son Phil at SKF Bearings. A former Hawke's Bay Speedway Club president, life member, stockcar teams racer, grader driver and water truck driver, Powell, died last year at the age of 88.

The driver of a six cylinder Falcon-powered car and son of former superstock driver, the late John Hynd, Hynd (pictured above, photos John Faulkner) had two heat wins and a second in the three races which counted towards the title.

"Thanks to a new diff my car had some good grip. I had my set up right and the car was on fire," Meeanee Maulers team member Hynd said afterwards.

There was plenty of stirring in those three races as well as the final race, a Stockcar Grand Slam, where the field was divided into pairs with one of the pair having to run and the other having to block. Heat one saw Shane Annan take out Hawke's Bay clubmate Thomas Rumble-Faram and both of these drivers were among four non finishers in the race.

Cameron Swift put Annan into the wall in heat three. The final race saw Eli Severinsen roll into the stationary car of clubmate Nick Holland. Ireland and Hynd put some big hits on Annan.

 
 

Hawke's Bay's Henry Steel (pictured above) won the 27-car Hawke's Bay ministock championship. Each driver had two heats where they accumulated points to determine the grid draw for the 15-lap winner-takes-all final.

Steel had pole for the final but dropped to third at one stage before regaining the lead with three laps to go. He had a 20.3602s lap time in the final and beat clubmate Jeremy Browne by 00.13 of a second. 

Their clubmate Liam Danielsen was third.

 
 

An entertaining Best Pairs event was staged in the 18-car streetstock class. Dave "The Sheriff" Brand and Bay clubmate Paul Dixon won the event.
Another host-track combination of David Adams (pictured above) and Nigel Potter was second and third place went to another Bay combo of Dontage Irfan, who was celebrating his 19th birthday, and Brent Redington.

Being part of the second placed combo was an ideal form of consolation for Adams who was millimetres away from his first victory in the third heat when his car stopped short of the finish line. The positive wire on his coil had come off.

 
 

Gisborne's Seth McKay (pictured above) won the 11-car Hawke's Bay production saloon championship. McKay, who won the East Coast Championship at Meeanee last month, beat Hawke's Bay's Denton Hodgkinson by one point and Whanganui's 2NZ Brett Hackett was a further five points back in third place.
McKay had a win and two second placings.

Hawke's Bay's 2NZ Jason Long had three heat wins in the 13-strong superstock class and clubmate Matt Titter the other. Former 1NZ Randal Tarrant did well to finish second to Long in the final heat when he was racing fellow Hawkeye Quintin Butcher's car.