27th October 2002

The season was here, and we were off to Napier for our first meeting, the sky was a bit overcast in Gisborne but the further we drove south the better the weather looked. It was a 6pm start so we had to be at the track before 5pm. We got to the track after a 3 hour tow from Gisborne to see quite a few Limited Saloons already there 85p Brett Sloman, 21m Steve Williams, 79w Stu Cunningham, plus  3 cars from Napier Tony Ohlson, Chris O’Connor  4b and John Browne 18b.

Race 1 saw me draw grid 4, beside me was Brett Sloman 85p, on grid 2 was Stu Cunningham 79w, and on pole Steve Williams 21m. A couple of laps into the race I was following 79w and 21m when I did an outside pass on 21m putting me into second place, another couple of laps had gone bye and I was still chasing the tale of 79w for a few more laps when he got a bit wide through turn 1 & 2 and I tucked up inside him to take over the lead and held on to take the win.

Race 2 I started on pole and half way through the race 85p tried do an outside pass on me but he got it all wrong and spun up. As my brakes at this stage weren’t working to good, I hit the right rear of the 85p car causing the yellow to come on, we all got in our right positions again and we were back racing I was still leading the race with a couple of laps to go I was trying to save my brakes as I was getting a hard peddle. I took it a little too easy, letting John Browne 18b do an outside pass on me to take over the lead and win.

Race 3 Steve Williams 21m and myself started off the back of the field, the track at this time had gone slick, half way through the race 21m was on the case and was slowly making his way through the pack leaving me in 5th place. With 2 laps to go 21m took over the lead from 18b who was leading most of the way, and 21m went through to win the last race in style.

The Napier track was no where the track it was last year, obviously putting stacks of lime on the track on the off season hasn’t payed off.