Earlier this month Steve Duff and Greg Hiddlestone approached Brad and have offered him the drive for the 2006/2007 season. This was a fantastic opportunity for Brad to experience racing a Sprintcar. We want to publicly thank these two guys for their support in making this happen. The car which will be finished later this week in preparation for the International Series held at Ruapuna mid December. Brad will continue to drive this Sprintcar in Christchurch when competing in the Midget International Events at the end of January 2007.
The Sprintcar will be sponsored by Dodge and Dickies Work and Streetwear which are our major sponsors of the Midget he drives here at Western Springs in Auckland.
The 16th December sees Brad compete with all the top drivers from around the country which include Pickerill, Rusher, Brindle, Freeman, Duff, Pickens, Wakeling, McDonald and Jones. The field will also see Craig Dollansky, Joey Saldana and Ricky Logan from the USA and Robbie Farr and Trevor Green from Australia.
Greg Mosen
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After a week of uncertainty with the weather, Saturday seemed to suggest that we would get this meeting in after all. We had the car scrutineered and for the first time in two years where we had the number signed off as acceptable. Brad and Mark Mullins had both agreed to run the 19 on their cars as did a number of drivers last year. This year Speedway New Zealand were not going let anyone get away with this so we had changed our number to 119 which had been our registered number for the last 2 years. Graeme Standring had also changed his so everyone had the OK. The night was to be one of the toughest in terms of track conditions I can remember. We had grid 4 in our first heat which had Brad finish in the top 3. The number of top Midgets that didn’t finish a heat races was unbelievable. This “no restart” rule for the heat events really makes if difficult. I find it hard to get my head around a car stopping to miss an incident because there was no where else to go and then getting pushed onto the infield as a result. Anyway, Brad finished both his heats, started grid 13 in his heat and finished 2nd. The track had started smooth and drivey and then looked like it was slicking off, and the Feature Race had drivey with huge holes in Pine Tree and drivey in and slick off in Town Bend. I said to one of the crew it was like running a Touring Car at Pukekohe when one end of the track was hot and dry and the other end it was pouring with rain.
Brad started the Feature on grid 2 and most of the top guys were way down the back. I missed the set-up on the car by a country mile and I could see early on that Brad could not get the car into the turns and coming off turn 2 the thing was all over the place. In the end we finished 3rd which is good for the points total but we still have to get the car sorted. The drive of the night for me was Bryce Townsend. He drove his car like he had stolen it, I guess having to go to the rear during the race got him pretty fired up and well done to him. Steve Curry had a good run to win his first ever midget race, coming from row 2.
The National Series Points table has been updated and the link is on the home page.
We head off to Napier in 2 weeks which will be good to get back on tour. I always remember Napier because the warm up had the drivers head out with no belts and no helmets on, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Greg Mosen
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