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Quick Hickman wins Midget Classic

Jarrod MacBeth

Duane Hickman was the fastest amongst the competitive twelve car Midget field and won the City of New Plymouth Classic at Stratford Speedway on Saturday night, seemingly with ease.  Racing a brand new car for the first time at his home track, Hickman dominated the competition and set a new lap record in the process, beating the old record that he held by a fraction of a second to record a fourteen second lap time in the first race.  Starting form grid five in race one, he hit the front of the field on lap six and stayed there to score maximum points before running a brilliant race in race two and coming home in second place form a grid eleven start.  After a bad start in race three, where he got too sideways and caused a caution, he made a better go of the restart and ran away from the field for another convincing win.  Hickman’s results ensured he was at the top of the leaderboard and he won the Classic nine points clear of Chris Bagrie who was second.  Bagrie is running a sister car to Hickman’s with both being built by Angus McLeod.  Wanganui racer Brent Huijs came home in third place, two points behind Bagrie.  Hickman was obviously happy with the car and the win.  “It was awesome to have a new chassis that is different to what we have always had, a good track and to get lap times like we did I was pretty happy.  All we did all night was change stagger and with more things to play with yet I think there is still more speed to come out of the car” he said.

Mitch Vickery was the standout driver in the Superstock class, but not for his exceptional speed or race wins.  Vickery won the Gary Adamson Memorial trophy for the class, which is awarded to the best stirrer on the night.  He clearly had his sights set on retaining possession of the trophy that he initially won last season and started taking shots at the other competitors in the first race.  Throughout the three races he hit nearly every other car on the track to deservedly win the event.

On the racing side of things, it all came down to a three way run off between Gary Johnson, Logan Sharpe and Andrew Lewis for the John Adamson Memorial after the three were tied on points.  Sharpe drove over Lewis’ bonnet in the first lap which gave Johnson the opportunity to gain some ground.  Lewis attempted to slam Johnson into the wall but couldn’t quite make it work and he went on to win with Sharpe second and Lewis third.

Craig Korff won the Plews Memorial for the Saloon class after he and Mark Hinton dominated the nights racing.  Korff recorded a first, second and seventh over the three races and Hinton a first, third and sixth.  This meant that the pair were tied on points and after a close four lap run off, Korff was the victor.  Jarrod MacBeth finished one point behind the pair in third.  Joe Ingram found his mojo in race three and made some brilliant outside passes in the later stages of the race but it was too late and he didn’t quite make it to the podium.

After three races with plenty of spins and crashes, Steve Reed won the Streetstock Olsen Memorial after recording first, second and third placings.  Experienced racer John Young was second and Paul Blinkhorne third.

An eighteen strong field of Adult Ministocks raced for their City of New Plymouth Classic.  After three competitive races, Kyle Wilson won the event by just one point from regular front runner Bradley Korff.  Caleb Douglas was third.

Youth Ministocks rounded out the race program with race wins going to Alana Buckthought, Matthew Picard and Will Hart.