The Oreti Park Hog Hunters drew first blood taking out the Moore Park round of the teams shield match. Accumulated points decide the overall winners with the next round at Oreti Park next weekend.
The team got off to a shaky start when the Canterbury Shakers father and son team of Lionel Green and Anthony Knowles tipped over the Hogs Jason Harpur and Mark George while attempting an inside pass. Fellow team mates Bevan Nuttridge and Broden Johnston had nowhere to go and ploughed into Haripur’s bike damaging theirs with the result that they had to borrow bikes throughout the meeting. Harpur managed to repair his as this heat was rerun later in the first round. The remaining Hogs team of Kerr/Poole, McMaster/Dawson and Luke Thwaites/Chalmers were consistent runners all day and outscored the opposition by 11 points to total 34. Behind the battle for the remaining bragging rights was closely fought. The Shield holders, the Wild Piglets were without the new NZ Champion James Douglass and Ricky Pubben due to Pubben’s injury after a hard NZ champs weekend. Douglass stayed home trying out a new swinger for next week’s round. Jason and Brandon Riley filled the spot and a point they scored for the team got the Piglets home in second place on 23 points, one ahead of the Shakers 22 with the Contenders back on 20. The exclusion of Green in heat one and Nuttridge in their third ride proved costly. Nuttridge tried valiantly to come to terms with three different bikes and a new swinger for him throughout the challenge. Contender’s rider Stan Fox and Chris Leedon’s DNF when the outside fairing came off damaged a good run for their team as well. When the Shakers fell behind, a Joker was played in the third round. Green/Knowles and team mates Cory Lang and Gus Eliot bought the team a one two finish over the Contenders, the eight points they earned helped jump them back up the chart. Wayne and Damien Bryce took a win for the Shakers in the final round and third place became a reality.
A field of nine support sidecar units provided some spirited completion which saw Liam Stockman and Blair Lock take overall honours from Mike Warwood and Stefan Burrow with Paul Anderson and Nick Case coming home in third. The new boys Ben Morris and John Erskine and old timers Warren Benson and Tony Henry, who are having some fun, are becoming competitive.
Junior solo support was a little down on numbers but the Whalley brothers Ben and Caleb won their respective classes overall as did Frankie Ray Lelievre in the Pee Wees. A fourth generation rider, Chase Lang had his first run in this class and acquitted himself well.
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