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Both Brad and I headed off last weekend to compete in the Australian Super Series at Speedway City in Adelaide. It was our first event driving the Polar Ice Spike/Hawk and an ideal opportunity to get our heads around the car in preparation for the Australian Title in a couple of weeks.
Jack Berry and his crew got the car down to Adelaide which was a two day haul. We had arrived to a warm couple of days with a slight sea breeze which made it very similar to the climate we left here in NZ, without the humidity. We spent Friday working on the car to ensure Brad had a comfortable driving position and a couple of changes here and there to ready it for the night ahead.
Speedway City is a track which is larger than Western Springs with a similar surface. It would be quite a bit wider in the turns and it has good banking which made it fast. The Super Series has the cars go out together for the wheel pack and then you don't get back to the pit. We all assembled on the infield and you run the one lap qualifying time. This is the beginning of how you collect points to determine where you start in the Feature. I had missed the gear set and the car was on the rev limiter half way down the straight. Brad qualified 10th of 20 cars. Next up was our heat and Brad started out of Grid 4. The track was very wet and Brad drove away to win that heat by nearly 3/4 of a lap. The second heat had Brad out of Grid 3 and he won that also. Next step was to run a top 8 car Pole Shuffle. We sat in second to Mark Brown and Brad managed to hold a couple challengers off to secure Pole in the Feature.
The Feature started and we had prepared the cars for what seemed to be a mid track surface, neither drivey or slick. When we got up to the track they had turned it over and pumped water into it and we all took a bit of a gulp. Too late, we had to deal with it. I made a few changes to the shock sets and out they went. Brad followed Mark Brown for about 8 of the 30 laps and then put the pass on. He eventually lapped up to about 6th. Mark stuck with Brad to the end and it was a great race to watch, interesting to see the Adelaide crowd cheering for the Kiwi.
Needless to say we were the last trailer to leave the pits, and that was only due to the lights being turned off. Jack and the team really enjoyed having their car on the Podium and it was great to be part of this whole deal.
Whilst looking ahead to Melbourne on the 19th and 20th Feb, we have our attention on this weekends racing at Western Springs.
Greg
Special thanks to Steve who supplied the photos for this story, click on the photo below to go to his site to see a number of action photos taken at Speedway City.
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Brad to drive for Jack Berry Racing - Australia |
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Today we confirmed that Brad will drive for JBR in Australia on two seperate occasions.
Brad will drive the #29 Spike/Graham Hawk for the first time on the 6th February 2010 in Adelaide. The event is Round 8 of the Australian Speedcar Super Series and will be held at 'Speedway City'. Last year Brad ran at both Parramatta and Archerfield and is required to compete in a third meeting to be eligible to enter the Australian Speedcar title. The second event will be the Australian Speedcar title held at Avalon Raceway in Melbourne from the 17-20th of February 2010.
This opportunity has been in the pipeline after Jack came to watch Brad run the International Series here recently. Both Jack and Brett from JBR wanted to give Brad a shot at the Australian Title and we finally concluded the details yesterday to ensure this happens. The title will be defended by Kevin Swindell and a number of both local and international drivers.
February Schedule:
6th Feb Speedcar Super Series Speedway City Adelaide
13th Feb Western Springs Series Western Springs Auckland
17-20th Feb Australian Speedcar Title Avalon Raceway Melbourne
27th Feb North Island Midget Champs Western Springs Auckland
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Brad Mosen - Rookie of the Year Chili Bowl 2010 |
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Mosen Wins "Rookie of the Year" at 2010 Chili Bowl.
Emmett Hahn, Promoter of the Chili Bowl Nationals confirmed today that Brad is the Chili Bowl Rookie of the Year at the 2010 event. Brad was one of 48 Rookies who entered this years event and he was the only one to make the A Main on the Saturday Night.
Having had a week or so for the entire event at the Chili Bowl to sink in, we are all happy with the fact that the two Kiwi boys made the A main straight from their qualifying nights. There were a number of big teams at this years event, teams like Keith Kunz Motorsport with 5 cars, the Wilkie team with 4, Loyet's team had 5, Steve Lewis had 4 and Kasey Kahne having 3 none of these teams got two cars through to the A main directly from the Qualifying Nights. The only team was the Kiwi contingent. There have been a number of people outside of the speedway scene ask me how big a deal it was to make it straight into the A main. I guess the best way of describing it is, it would be like making the 100 Meter final at the Olympics.
Anyway, we are now back to reality here in NZ, and looking now to what lies ahead. February has 3 Meetings at Western Springs, one of which is the North Island Championship. There is a strong possibility that Brad will contest the Australian Midget Championship which is held in Melbourne in February. Once this is finalised, I will post the details shortly.
Again I want to thank all those who sent both texts and emails to us in the US, really appreciate your support.
Greg.
Updated 26th January 2010
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 We spent the entire day working on the two cars in preparation for the A Main which was due to get underway at around 10pm that night. We were part of a very special group of 12 drivers who didn't need to qualify and to be honest we didn't really understand how big a thing this was. The rest of them started their Mains at 12 noon in L Mains. They ran all day in an effort to make the final and this was really tough for most of them. You could see that the two front running cars in each race settled into their groove, whilst the dog fight behind them trying to get to the front was game on. They would do anything to pass the car ahead of them and the guy in front was doing everything he could do to keep him out.
Finally we had the opportunity to hot lap the cars which we did just before the last two B mains. Both the cars looked good as the track had just been turned and had plenty of grip. Brad ran the 2nd fastest time with a 11.5 and Michael was right behind him with an 11.6. This was our last chance to try out the cars before the Main event.
The build up to this last race was unbelievable, they had 3 separate versions of the national Anthem, they introduced each driver to the crowd out on the infield, steamers, you name it, they had it. At one point they all the drivers walk behind heir state flag and they threw frizbies into the crowd. Brad and Michael walked out with the Kiwi Flag and we could see that these two had plenty of support from the crowd, quite a cool moment.
The race started, MP was on grid 7 and Brad on 12. Unlike previous starts, this one went green and stayed green for about 14 laps. Brad had moved up into 6th right behind Michael in 5th spot. They looked good, track was starting to go away and become very slick/dry. MP moved into 3rd and Brad was right behind him when he got hooked up with another car in Turn 4 and he got turned around. He restarted however you go to the rear of the field. It had just happened to both Darren Hagen and Brad Loyet so their race was done and they ran together to the end. Michael got to 2nd at one stage until the fast guys who had started further back arrived. He got tapped down a straight and went back to 7th and then slipped further back to around 12th by the end.
So it wasn't quite the dream finish we had hoped for, however I think these two drivers and both Luke and Simon can be very proud of what they achieved. Both Simon and Luke stepped up and put this whole thing together and it is a credit to both these two guys. Thanks also must go to the team of guys who worked on these cars. This is a trip we will all remember for a long time, and we put NZ on the map up here at what is called the Biggest Midget Show on earth.
Thanks to all of you for your texts and emails, you can look forward to a Documentary about this trip on TV3 in the near future.
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The Final Day ahead at Chili Bowl |
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Sitting here writing this at 9am our time you will all be asleep at 4am. The mood here is mixed between both the excitment and the anticipation of what tonight may bring. We are about to head off to the track to get the cars out and begin our final prep work on both cars. I spent all of yesteday going over our car from front to back checking everything and fully servicing the working parts, so should be getting close.
The racing action last night wasn't too bad with top performances from Cory Kruseman, Jerry Coons Jnr and Danny Stratton. Straight after that race they called all the qualifiers out onto the infield to draw their starting positions for tonights A Main. Michael starts 7th and Brad starts 12th. Both these guys have a shot a winning this thing as the field will start to run their lines and there has been passing either on the bottom or on the top. My guess is, it will happen early and then it should settle down.
For those who have not qualified, they start with two L Mains taking the top 2 finishers out of each and they transfer into the K Mains off the back. Then they take the two winners of the two K Mains and they transfer forward and this repeats all the way up to the A Main where they take 6 out of each B main. This is where the final 12 cars come from and then they have 1 provisional which is Sammy Swindell as last years winner. He told me last night that he may not run the mains today and risk the car, he will probably just sit it out and start from grid 25.
If you want to hear the race live you can go to Race Fan Radio and log in there, I am sure the news will move pretty quickly especially if one or both of our boys go well.
Thanks again to all those sending texts and emails, really appreciate your support.
Greg |
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