Heritage is all very well; in fact, for a while there I for one, like a lot of fellow motorsport fans, was all for Auckland’s Western Springs speedway staying where it is.
Having said that my opinion was more to do with flipping the bird to all the ‘Johnny-come-lately yuppies (the 80s), ‘property investors,’ (the 90s and 00s) and hipsters (today) who have moved within earshot of the venue. And who, despite knowing full well that the place was Auckland’s #1 ‘place-to-race’ since the 1920s, agitated to have restrictions (noise, dust, race days etc) placed on activity there so that they could climb the property ladder.
Wankers!
However, when I heard that a deal had been done by Springs’ management to move – on their own terms and with a big, fat bag of Supercity $$$$ to help get things started – to a new, purpose-built track and facility at Colin Dale Park out by the city’s airport, I was like, ‘hmmm, that actually makes a lot of sense.’
It does for any number of reasons, and paints promotor Greg Mosen and his boss, the Director of Springs Promotions Ltd, Bill Buckley, in a very positive, forward-looking (rather than reactionary and backward-looking) light.
For instance, all I can remember about the debate over moving Rugby League from a tiny, totally inappropriate venue tucked in below the Auckland Domain (sound familiar?) was the silly old Mad Butcher rasping about Carlaw Park being the ‘spiritual home’ of the sport in Auckland’ so – by definition – it should never leave.
Yet it did – to Mt Smart stadium – where, despite a woeful record by the country’s only professional side in the ARL, the Warriors, the sport has grown and prospered to the point where it is no longer a sad-sack second cousin to Rugby Union. And let’s not forget, money from the original sale of Carlaw Park has (thank God) recently kept the ownership of the team in local hands.
Now all us Aucklanders need is the same sort of long-term, big picture ‘sport-rather-than-sentiment-first’ action shown by the rugger-buggers who are hanging on desperately to the train-wreck that is Eden Park…..but that is a story for another day.
Die-hard Western Spring fans are still going to mourn (long, loud and for years to come, no doubt!) the loss of what they consider their own ‘spiritual home’ here.
What many won’t actually be aware of, however, is that racing at Western Springs on four wheels (in purpose-built Midget cars) didn’t actually start here in NZ until 1937. And that if there is a ‘ground zero’ for what today we know of as ‘speedway’ here in NZ it is – literally – just across Puhinui Rd from the new Colin Dale Park motorsport precinct where Western Springs V2 will start hosting meetings at the end of 2020.
There, on a site on Mangere’s Pukaki Rd, early car industry entrepreneur, George Henning created the Mangere Speedway and ran meetings from Saturday March 23 1929 until April 12 1934 on a purpose-built 2.1km (1.25 mile) oval (with races run in a counter-clockwise direction like in the US) dug out of what had been a partly-submerged extinct volcano cone.
Prior to that the new-fangled sport called motor racing had been largely contested on beaches, with the original New Zealand Motor Cup first awarded to the winner of the main event at the Muriwai beach race meeting on the hard, black sand of the popular West Auckland spot in 1921.
Through the 1920s interest in the sport blossomed, with up to 80 entries and crowds of up to 5,000 descending on Muriwai for ‘Motor Cup Day.
The next logical step was to create a permanent home and, with oval racing the preeminent form of competition in the US, Australia and here at the time, that’s what George Henning built, an oval.
I still get a wee shiver up my spine on the rare occasions these days I’m on the left-hand-side of a plane taking off towards the east (most planes these days seem to take off to the west) from Auckland Airport and can pick out the remains of the Mangere (or Henning’s as it also became known as) Speedway from the air.
As it turned out, however, George’s speedway was not destined to last long. Competitors and spectators (9,000 turned up to the opening meeting on Saturday March 23 1929) soon tired of the thick, clinging red dust, and though meetings continued to be run on a regular basis, despite the crippling economic effects of the Great Depression, interest appeared to wane.
Then, when, in 1934, the Borough of nearby Onehunga officially opened their own, smaller (800m or half-mile), dust-free oval just down the road at Gloucester Park (the motorway now dissects it and though a ‘Park still exists it now encircles a small lake) that’s where the action moved to.
As it turned out Gloucester Park didn’t last long as a venue either, another motor industry entrepreneur, Albert James (AJ) Roycroft promoting the first proper Midget race (bringing down a troupe of American drivers and their cars) at Western Springs on Christmas Day 1937.
Up until that point ‘The Springs had been a venue for bicycle racing (on a banked concrete track which was eventually ripped out and turned into the concrete ‘bleachers’ where most fans sit) and for motorcycle speedway on a cinder oval where the current clay ‘car’ one is now.
On a hot mid-summer night, the amphitheatre nature of the venue means ‘The Springs is still a magical place to soak up the very best of speedway action. However, by looking forward rather than backwards Mosen, Buckley and co. have, I believe, done all motorsport fans in the Auckland region a huge favour.
As a dedicated noise zone thanks to its position adjacent the airport, Colin Dale Park will never have the sort of artificially low, engine strangulating decibel limits placed on it that Western Springs did. Which means more, better and longer (later) meetings for a start.
As a dedicated motorsport zone the Park is also the home – already – of a permanent Off-Road Racing loop, a Jet Sprint course, and BMX and outdoor Supercross tracks, while within 3-5 years New Zealand’s newest CIK-FIA-style international Kart track will be up and running there.
Add in the potential for Brendon White and his crew from D1NZ to create a wicked temporary Drift track, as they have at the Bay Park, Wellington and Dunedin and well, all I can say is Auckland will finally have a true – and very much future-proofed – world class destination motorsport venue to call its own.
There’s a lesson here too, one I hope some of our more hidebound and outspoken brethren will heed.
Having studied history and written a book about the first 100 years of motor racing in this wonderful little country of ours I am only too aware of the role in our young sport of myth, legend and loyalty to those people, places and venues which have gone before.
There comes a time however, when you have to cast off the shackles of the past, grasp the future with both hands and look at making history rather than using it to hold you back.
Like thousands of Aucklanders, I will still make my annual pilgrimages to ‘Western Springs’ to catch up on mates and enjoy the sort of fast, close, exciting, heart-in-the-mouth racing only sideways ‘turn-left-to-go-fast’ action on sticky Auckland clay (on a hot saltry summer’s night to boot) provides.
It might take me a little longer to get there but with Mosen, Buckley and co calling the shots I know both the spectacle and the heritage of the sport is in safe hands.
Hands I bet old George Henning wished he had had when he opened for business over the road 89 years ago!
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