Tyres and cars were tortured while being smoked and blown apart on June 11 at Lack-A-Traction’s Winter Blow Out, held at Meeanee Speedway. This was the venue’s second event, and it had been rescheduled to June 11 due to the Napier City Council imposing new rules.
All up 43 vehicles were entered, and came from as far away as Auckland and Wellington — none were disappointed with the bright sunny day that eventuated. The locals were out in force, too, packing the grandstand in hope of witnessing serious amounts of tyre destruction.
Not all locals were spectators, though, with Arnie Donaldson recently spending many a late night installing a new small block Chev engine sourced from a sprint car. The new combo makes the car just the second-ever methanol-powered burnout machine in the country.
The car sounded great, despite being notably quieter than the old petrol-based engine it previously competed with.
That new power wasn’t enough to get Arnie the win, though, with that honour (in the V8 Class) going to Rob Teheriri from Pahiatua in his XY Falcon.
Second was Brett Kenny of Masterton in his VT Commodore, while third went to Jonathan van Beynen, again in a Commodore.
In the Six Cylinder class it was Deno Greek’s Commodore that took the title.
Second was Hern Daymond, with, you guessed it, another Commodore! While third went to the Ford Fairmont of Masterton’s Isaac Carswell.
While not managing to place on the podium, Phil Morris made the trip from Wellington and seemed to be happy beating his Commodore to the limit.
A little less prepared was Hawke’s Bay’s Taare Black, who borrowed his wife’s car for the day, not saying where he was going or what he might be up to. The 2004 Mazda RX-8 got a real hiding, so at the least he’d have been buying wifey a new set of tyres …
Fellow Hawke’s Bay local Barry Spicer’s V8-powered Toyota Corona almost looked too good to be out on the pad, but that didn’t stop him from going till the tyres blew, putting on a great show in front of his home crowd.
With the grandstand full, and the Lack-A-Traction guys happy with how the event ran, their next focus is to put on an even bigger event later in the year, with more out-of-town cars, and even more tyre-blowing madness.
