It was like being a kid and counting the days till Christmas, but the time finally arrived and it was off to “The Glen” to see the cream of the NZ Modified drivers battle it out for the NZ title. It was home turf for the South Island cars but the North Island were sending down possibly the strongest contingent ever; the current 1 & 3 NZ, the NZ Grand Prix winner, the Auckland Champ (and past 1NZ), another ex 1NZ from Stratford and a host of other strong contenders……………let battle commence!

With 6 heats on night one that would see 14 cars from a total field of 27 qualify, I’ll just list a few highlights and observations. Heat winners from the Blue Group were 96N Cliff Frost, 891T Steve “Shiny” Crowe and 6A Brian Jesen; and from the Red Group 84C Natasha Rogers (who got by far the biggest cheer of the night), 77S (17S for the duration of the champs) Craig Ward and 11A Jamie Fox. So, 3 heats to the North Island and 3 to the South with 8 North Island cars and 6 South Island making up the 14 qualifiers.

Top points scorer with a 1st and two 2nds was Shiny Crowe and of the 3 Greymouth Cars, 2 qualified. There are always, for whatever reason, some surprise non-qualifiers and this time it would be the likes of Scott Lane, Nigel Nevin, Paul Blakeley, John Jackson and Mike Gourley that would have to line up in the reperchage on night 2, with only the first two making it through to the Championship heats. 

The North Island drivers were told to expect and duly arrived prepared for a “drivey” track. Now the feature of any championship is that everybody has to race in the same conditions and set-up is as vital a component as driving ability. The cars that can best handle the track conditions are going to gain an advantage and if its’ your home track, well that’s just the luck of the draw. “Drivey” is a matter of interpretation and to the locals at “the Glen”, it may well have been so, but there was no comparison at all to the Huntly and Waikaraka tracks the northern cars had been racing on. Consequently most of them had very average nights and although they won 3 of the heats, all 3 were from the front row of the grid.

Shiny Crowe looked the pick of all the cars, with defending champion Tony Galbraith qualifying relatively easily and others such as Allan Haigh, Jamie Fox and Tama Arapere all safely through but at the same time struggling to get to grips with the track and making no progress at all running the high-line as the heats progressed. Special mention must be made of Brian Jesen who slammed hard into a spun-up Paul Ward in the 2nd heat. The car had the right rear centre ripped clean out of the wheel rim, the front beam bent but more seriously, Brain suffered suspected cracked ribs in the crash. He returned however to win the 3rd heat and race for the Championship the following night.

Debate has raged over whether the format for the title should be a one-off, winner takes all, or 3 heats with cumulative points. The latter was the case for this championship but the qualifying heats also through up an anomaly. If a car pulled off during a heat the driver still scored points, depending upon which lap he pulled off on, so a DNF wasn’t really that. Strangely, there were cars that completed all 3 heats, never spinning and scoring consistent points, but still ending up in the reperchage; whilst others only saw the chequered flag twice, but because of the scoring system went straight through to the finals.

So, on to the finals. The northerners knew that they would have to run down low and take advantage of others’ mistakes rather than use their horsepower and drive around the outside. Problem was, did they bring the equipment with them to allow that? At home they would be running anywhere between 15 and 19 inches of stagger but “the Glenn” would require possibly 12inches, or even lower, could it be done?

First things first and two more finalists were needed to be found from the repechage. Because they were the next best points scorers, Scott Lane and Paul Blakeley were off the front of the grid and after a bit of push and shove that ended up with only 4 cars of the 12 starters finishing, those two duly made it through. Heat 1 saw local fav’ Natasha Rodgers off pole with Brian McPhee off 2. That’s where they started and that’s where they finished with Rodgers duplicating her tactics of the previous night of staying right down on the pole line, almost crawling around the bends and high-tailing it off down the straights. After 5 or so laps there was really no high-line to speak of, so the pole was the place to be. Tama Arapere and Brian Jesen really struggled in this heat, Shiny Crowe made no real progress at all from grid 14 but Tony Galbraith made a big move up to 4th from grid 10. Drive of the heat though was 96N Cliff Frost. Starting off 8 he got right up to the top 3 before being relegated to the back of the field by the referee after an incident. He took off again and got back up to 9th by the end of the race.

Heat two saw current 1NZ Tony Galbraith off the front row. Tony had learned from the first night that down low was the place to be, stayed there and won the heat comfortably. Another fantastic drive from Cliff Frost saw him up to 2nd from grid 16 and a better effort saw Shiny come home 3rd. After a 3rd in the first heat Allan Haigh did well to get to 6th from grid 14. This heat saw the end of Tamas’ hopes of retaining a top 3 ranking. Running mid field and pushing it hard, he over-did things and spun to a stop mid turn 1 & 2. Mark Dixon had nowhere to go and slammed hard into the side of Tama, tipping him over before rolling heavily himself. Heat 1 winner Tasha Rodgers was 4th after starting from 11.

The final heat was set up for an intriguing finish. Rodgers and Galbraith were tied on 29 points and starting off grids 12 & 13 respectively. Haigh was four points back and off grid 6 with Frost a further 2 points back and off the front. Frost shot away from the start as expected with Haigh moving into the top 3 along with Jamie Fox, but “Foxy” was soon battling the track as he and others had all weekend; plenty of “go-forward” in the early laps when there was some drive but as soon as it slicked off, they had no momentum and started to slip back. Galbraith too was struggling and Rodgers soon put 4 or 5 cars between him and herself. Haigh was now up to 2nd and all eyes were on him and Rodgers to see if the positions would change. He needed to finish 5 places ahead to claim the title and that’s about where he was mid-race. Then things started to change. Galbraith must have set-up the car to “come-on” as the race progressed because almost without warning he was right up behind Rodgers and on the charge. Going into turn one he got through underneath and started to pull away, and was within 4 positions of Haigh. A couple of laps later, drama struck. Fox, who was trying to stay low but without success, lost some momentum going into turn one, Galbraith was going faster and spun trying to avoid him and Rodgers had no-where to go but into the side of Galbraith. The race went onto yellow with Haigh all of a sudden looking like he had things in the bag as Galbraith was pushed onto the infield with his rear brakes on fire (shows you how hard he was working them) and Rodgers was towed off with a bent front end. Galbraith managed to get going again but was sent to the back of the field by the referee. With 5 or 6 laps to go the result looked to be set, with Haigh about 11 positions ahead on the track. What happened next had to be seen to be believed. Galbraith started passing cars as if they were chained to a post, it was a drive of almost demonic fury which saw him pass Brian Jesen on the last corner of the last lap to get up to 6th. No-one was sure how, but with Haigh finishing 2nd behind Frost, Galbraith had managed to force a run-off.

Frosts’ win in the last heat saw him end on 39 points, only one behind Haigh and Galbraith on 40, if it had not been for his relegation in Heat 1, he may well have ended up a clear title winner. As they two came out for the run-off, because of Galbraiths’ incident with Rodgers in the 3rd heat, Haigh was the clear crowd favourite. They formed up with Haigh on the inside and Galbraith on his outer. The outside car is the pace setter so it was no surprise that Galbraith led into turn 1. Coming out of turn 4 fast and going wide was a bad tactic all weekend so both cars were almost down to a crawl to avoid this happening. Going down the straight Haigh spotted a half gap inside Galbraith and started to push though. The crowd roared and Haigh held his line going into turn 1 again. Coming out of turn two Galbraith was half a car length ahead on the outside with Haigh still pushing, but that is the end of the story, there wasn’t quite enough room and Haigh spun to the infield, leaving Galbraith a clear run to back to back titles, in the end a deserved winner. 

Following up his win in the Grand Prix with 2nd in the Champs, concluded what must have been a satisfying week for Haigh and Cliff Frosts’ effort to slide in under the radar for 3rd was commendable. After leaving Waikaraka Park the previous Saturday with a very bent car and no guarantee of even getting to Christchurch, it was a very relieved Tony Galbraith who accepted the prize and the obligatory buckets of water after the meeting. Celebrations and water gun fights continued long into the night and it was a very bleary eyed trio who still stood debating the success of the weekend in the campground next door as the sun came up the next morning.