Motor Sport
The Riverside Speedway hosted a packed house of Speedway fans on Saturday night to sign off another season of action.
This meeting would be the final round of the Southern Saloon Series, an event made up of three rounds at Dunedin, Cromwell and Invercargill.
Going into the event it was Dunedin’s Terry Soper who held a handy points advantage over Cromwell driver Graham Williamson, Soper only really needed consistent finishes to clinch the title, but an eventful evening would unfold turning the series on its head.
Soper started from the rear of the field in race one but managed to get up to sixth, Williamson secured second ahead of Cromwell’s Ivan Murdoch and Invercargill’s Dean Shearing.
Race two started with two false starts, Soper deemed to have jumped both so he was relegated to the rear of the field, once the race started Matt Greene of Dunedin made solid contact with the wall tipping him over and causing yet another restart.
This time around Soper made a play from the rear of the field only to clip the wall on the main straight and perform a solid roll over putting an end to his hopes of a series win, the race was then aborted to allow drivers to regroup.
The re-run of race two saw Cromwell’s Mike Verdoner receive the black flag sending him to the infield after hitting Williamson under caution, this issue would resurface in the final race of the day. Williamson managed to thread his way to the front of the pack to grab a race win over Murdoch and Dan Black of Invercargill.
In the final Murdoch got a jump at the start which would never be tested throughout the race, the eventual round winner drove a faultless race to the chequered flag, all the action was behind him as Verdoner and Williamson battled for second, Verdoner putting a number of hits on Williamson before Williamson let him past to avoid an further incidents, third was enough to see Williamson claim the series. Second in the series was Soper with Shearing third.
Club legend Steve Dryden won the Demolition Derby with a record number of cars entered, seventy eight in total. Dryden battled it out with Youth Saloon driver Anastezea Ladbrook as the last two cars running, Dryden claimed victory when Ladbrooks car died, Ladbrook was awarded the stirrers prize along with Tam Clements, while Red Band Racing won best team.
Riverside Ratbag Streetstock team consisting of Troy Dryden, Mark Henderson, Chris Kergozou and Dillon McHattie won the Streetstock teams battle, while Logan McNamara took the first ever Ronnie Tree Memorial Trophy in Stockcars. The night also seen teenager Jacob Garrick claim his first ever race win in Stockcars in his maiden season.