2009 North West Championships

What a fantastic 2 nights of racing at the Carnarvon Speedway track for the annual North West Championships was seen at the long weekend.

Perfect weather conditions added to the great atmosphere.
A Meet and Greet the drivers with a meal and a Drivers Draw on the Friday night got proceedings underway.
Alot of visiting drivers from all divisions came to put their machines and skills to the test on yet another excellently prepared track.

Six divisions had the program booked out with great numbers of 10 in the Juniors, with only four of them being locals, 8 in the Sprintcars, and a big 15 entrants in the Street Stocks, for the Stocksville 30 Lapper event.
Productions had 6 out of towners nominating with Modifieds 3 and a Super Sedan running with them on the Sunday night.

Another division competed that isn't normally run here was the Midgets with 5 drivers giving it their all.
The three rounds of heats on the Saturday night were fast and furious with everyone wanting to gather valuable points going into the second and final night on the Sunday.
The Gascoyne Crane Hire boys were kept busy on the Saturday night with local Sprintcar driver, Stephen Lyall clipping the windrow, spinning and mounting the wall in front of the large crowd at the clubhouse at a very fast pace.

A huge round of applause was heard after Lyall extracted himself from the bent 28 car and he was taken to be check out as a precautionary measure suffering a slight headache.
Also on the same night in the same division, turn 3 claimed the two Rob Watson cars as one decided to drop in on the other and the only way they were going to stop was by the concrete wall.
However works on the number 10 car saw it back out on the track on the next night minus the 27 car.
Rob Watson Snr had said how much he enjoyed the Carnarvon clay track and it was the fastest and grippiest he had ever raced on.

The Productions also enjoyed their time on the clay, no one more so than Greg "Footy" Robinson from Shark Bay. He raced extremely well all weekend to take out the trophy for the 20 lap feature.
Christopher Hawes won the Midgets division while local veteran Kim Jolly took home the Modified trophy winning rather comfortably after getting past Karratha driver Mathew Peaker in their 15 lap final.
The Juniors again entertained us with their thrilling driving of passing, changing positions frequently and going flat chat often three wide around the track.

The whole field of drivers are a great bunch of gutsy kids and are defiantly future super star material.
All drivers were from around the Gascoyne district. 4 from Carnarvon, 3 from Shark Bay and 3 from Geraldton.
But it was all smiles for Shark Bay boy Hayden Norman who had been knocking on this door for a while now.
He collected the trophy for the Championships in front of local brothers Damon and Trent Lyall after their exciting 20 lap feature.

The Sprintcar final, also 20 laps, was a great curtain raiser to the Street Stock Stocksville 30 lapper.
The track had been prepared with a number of these wide tyred machines in mind, having to with stand the pounding it was going to have in such a short period of time.
Track curators Les John, Ricky Klix and helpers didn't disappoint.
Sprintcar drivers were again thankful that it was a cheap night on tyres.
Call it what you will, but the home track to Burkie Holla saw him absolutely flying around the circuit at great speed.

He started on pole and never looked back. With all of the sprintcars going at once it had caused a whirlwind effect on the atmospheric pressure within a 50 metre radius of the track and it wasn't very hard to get lost in the thick of it.

Holla the outright victor with Geraldton drivers Rob Stevens and Nathan Chant second and third place getters. Good to see local Jim Andreoli back on track too.

The final event for the weekend was the gruelling Stocksville 30 Lapper, which had attracted the likes of Mick "The Hammer" Hammon from Bunbury, Ben Ridley of Karratha and Evan Wakefield all the way from Kalgoorlie.Also neighbouring Paul Norman from Shark Bay and Romeo Andreoli towed up his newly shelled Falcon from Perth.

Birthday boy Leo Brooks had a good win on the Saturday night and Kane Munro looked promising with a "Taxi" motor under his bonnet. And Glenn Harper driving a much older version of alot of the current cars was classed as the "Dark Horse."

The direction of the big race was decided by the flip of the coin and drivers were instructed it was reverse circuit once lined up on the dummy grid in the pits.

Last years WASCF State Title winner, Daniel Pidala came out first and took Pole position. Outside of him was the Daddy of the field Glenn Harper. Starting out of position 3, Mick Hammon, another State Title podium driver and Wildcard Kane Munro out of 4. And still in with a chance, Leo Brooks, Wade Mason, Evan Wakefield, Romeo Andreoli, Paul Norman, Paula Lyall, Tara Mason, Lance Root and Ben Ridley on the starting grid.

The race saw 6 restarts, but from start to finish it was Daniel Pidala all the way, not without enormous pressure from Mick Hammon at every turn though. The drivers enjoyed the racing as much as the crowd did would of slept very well that night.

The finishing results of the 30 Lapper was Dainel Pidala the winner with Mick Hammon second and an excellent drive from Evan Wakefield saw him on the podium in third place. Glenn Harper finished a creditable fourth and Paula Lyall was please to finish the race in 5th position. The rest of the field did not finish due to one thing or another.

Many many thanks to all voluenteers, especially Dave and Dolly Charles who travelled to do the Cheif Steward position and manual lap scoring.

Only one more meeting left for the season, that's Saturday the 20th of June.
Catch ya on Clay then!