After six years of planning, red tape, and the other obstacles that the guys from Lack-A-Traction had to go through to get a dedicated burnout pad laid down at the Meeanee Speedway grounds in Hawke’s Bay, the efforts all became worthwhile on November 28. This date saw the highly anticipated official opening of the new facility.
While the weather forecast wasn’t looking good, those who know the Hawke’s Bay area know that anything can happen overnight, and it did. The day dawned with nice blue sky, which saw around 3000 people show up to watch the tyre-frying action.
More than 30 drivers entered, coming from as far away as Auckland and Wellington, as well as a big presence from the Wairarapa district.
It didn’t take long for the fresh-looking concrete to be covered in black rubber and pieces of tyres, from small to rather large, including what appeared to be full pieces of sidewall.
With every popped tyre came a massive cheer from the crowd, and with over an hour and a half to get through the first round, there was plenty of cheering to be had!
One of the guys behind the new facility, Shane Donaldson, took the opportunity to take passengers for rides in his wild-looking Falcon ute.
Phillip Morris from Masterton, in his V6-powered Commodore, blew a power-steering hose and sprayed fluid onto the hot exhaust, producing some nice flames to go with some smoke, much to the delight of the crowd
Jonathan van Beyron’s Commodore wagon literally blew the side off his tyre as he laid down an awesome skid.
Ian ‘Sambo’ Smith came all the way from Auckland, but unfortunately his first shot didn’t fare too well when the accelerator cable came unstuck. He made up for it later though, and the blown small block Chev-powered RX-7 sure looks the part.
Peter Brough with his V8-powered ’78 Mitsi ute had little difficulty spinning the tyres creating lots of smoke.
It looked like Grant Walker might have borrowed this little four-cylinder ’71 Datsun 1200 from his grandad!
Dana Beazly’s day ended a bit earlier than he’d hoped when a rod came out of the block of his RB-powered Nissan.
After the second round the top 10 cars were selected for the grand final, included in which were several four-cylinders joining the mix.
A lot of punters were expecting Ricky Ireland in his blown big block Chev-powered Holden ute to take it out, but this was not to be as he placed third.
Second went to Brett Kenny from Masterton in his Holden Commodore VT.
The winner of the $1000 first-place cheque was Fraser Macaree in his V8-powered ’79 Holden Kingswood one-tonner ute.
The next comp at the venue is set to take place in March 2016, and if this one is anything to go by, it’s set to impress. Keep an eye on the Lack-A-Traction Facebook page for more information.
