Baypark Speedway is reporting record numbers with just under 5000 people attending the annual Scrapman Caravan and Demolition Derby on Saturday.
Organisers say people soaked up the atmosphere, with a large number of families and avid speedway supporters enjoying a full field of sprint cars, super saloons, saloon cars, stock cars and mini stocks racing.
Cars towing a portaloo and the Rena boat were headliners in the derby.
The penultimate event for the evening was the always popular caravan derby with seven entries.
Speedway organisers says anything on wheels can be towed and this year did not disappoint, with entries including a portaloo, an interesting version of the Rena complete with cardboard box ‘containers' and the usual array of beaten up caravans.
The portaloo and Rena were no match for race winner Mike Lowe with a mini in tow.
The next meeting will be on March 24 and will see the long awaited return of the super stocks to the Baypark clay quarter mile.
People are being invited to get the family together and head along to see some of the best racers from all over the North Island.
8 comments
yee har
Posted on 13-03-2012 16:46 | By Kin
I think I've seen this lot practising on SH29
Record numbers?
Posted on 13-03-2012 18:03 | By SpeakUp
Yep. True. Record prices for food and drinks. After paying dearly for tickets you can't even bring a picknick box anymore. Not even a sandwich or a bottle of water. Pathetic.
uninformed
Posted on 13-03-2012 20:35 | By supportbop
@SpeakUp. Actually prices at baypark are what you would expect to pay at any modern day event be that sport or general entertainment. The first night of the racing season saw poorly managed security enforce diffrent rules to previous seasons and now adjustments have been made so you can bring in any non commericially packaged food. As for open water bottles, it is common security practice to not allow unsealed bottles into public events so dont expect any diffrent from this event
@supportbop
Posted on 14-03-2012 08:54 | By SpeakUp
Yes, you'd come to expect a rip off at modern day events. That's why less and less people can afford a family outing. You get informed yourself, mate. Record numbers at Baypark used to be as high as 16500 with hardly a seat left of the total capacity of 17000. 5000 visitors is maybe a record number since the new useless ripoff artists took over. And for a true record: Prize money has plummeted from about $600 to record low of $50 (fifty!) for a Super Saloon win while the administration is creaming it. PATHETIC.
Utter rubbish
Posted on 14-03-2012 09:48 | By Helen66
Prices have been the same since day one when the place opened. In fact a $5.00 senior ticket was introduced to make it cheaper. You are WRONG Commercial food is all you are not allowed in, one meeting and SECURITY were only doing as they were instructed to do, the same company since the place opened but just different instruction, "adjustments" the council saw the error of their ways and allowed security to revert to the way it had always been done, security don't get to decide the terms of conditions of entry. What is truly pathetic is that these drivers think that some one else should pay for their hobby. Petrol, travel, accommodation and then prize money. "Come to expect a a rip off at modern day events" you people have not got a clue, always someone that thinks they can do it better. Speakup should shut up.
LOL
Posted on 14-03-2012 13:43 | By tl;dr
Laugh much at Speak up laugh along with yee har ..... lol
Cheaper than the movies
Posted on 14-03-2012 22:28 | By trudznz
And when you remember it was $12 for an adult ticket at the old Baypark 20 years ago, that got you a grass bank or scaffolding style stands, and queues for the dodgy toilet 'blocks', it hasn't really increased in price much.
Nice TCVL campaign, no cigar
Posted on 15-03-2012 11:04 | By SpeakUp
Fact remains that dwindling visitor numbers AND competitor numbers speak for themselves. Baypark original caterer Colin Davis has followed speedway promoter Willie Kay and has been ‘sacked' by TCVL. It is said that Kay was paid $ 850000 to drop his contract that had NINE more years to run. Now TCVL is running their own apparatus with their own speedway manager, their own group of speedway officials, security staff, and their own catering service (7.50 for a ginger beer...pathetic). The whole TCVL smells of autocracy: Many volunteers have left or were told that they are not welcome amongst the new bunch of TCVL employees; spectators are told what food they can bring. Apart from water no other drink is allowed; you are not allowed anymore into the ‘pits' behind the stadium (for many youngsters THE attraction); you are not anymore allowed to smoke in the stands notwithstanding the clouds of exhaust fumes and dust clouds; the drivers have to line up now to have their vehicles checked before the races instead of being visited in the pits by volunteers who had years of experience for their generous free service and knew each driver/car; a new and controversial drug testing regime has been introduced of which Willie Kay rightly thought to be too invasive (could that be the reason for the dwindling race participation, especially for events like demo derby?); the spectator numbers are of course dwindling because of the meddling by ‘administrators'; many sporting officials, led by netball, basketball and volleyball, have said that the high rents will make many sport events too expensive and they'll go somewhere else;...gee, I could go on and on and on. Typically (similar to the Jazz festival) bureaucracy is killing something that was created by volunteers and private enterprise, has functioned beautifully for decades, but has now been usurped by a brigade of USELESS know-it-all sociopaths who need a job and who think the community needs them and their ‘management'. These parasites help themselves to precious rate monies and if they fail (many of them have failed before in private enterprise), hey, they extort the ratepayer to bail them out. My family used to love speedway and other events. Now we don't care anymore. Anything TCC touches is doomed. TCVL will be no exception.
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