Southern Speedway Shines At Gala Awards

New Zealand Speedways night of nights, the New Zealand Speedway Awards was held recently in Auckland and Speedway in the South took home its best ever haul of silverware with six awards coming South.

X Factor Cars Riverside Speedway Commentator Daryl Shuttleworth scooped the Commentator Of The Year Award for the first time, this is an award that has eluded him in the past, Shuttleworth has been commentating for four years and has been a finalist for this award every year but always ended up the bridesmaid. This year he was the only South Island finalist and took the award, unfortunately Shuttleworth wasn’t in attendance but meet the plane to collect the trophy when it arrived in Invercargill. Shuttleworth stated “ive never commentated to win awards but being nominated four times i wanted it bad, i was starting to think it was unwinnable”

The Riverside club also won Best Event Programme for the Official Programme they produced for the New Zealand Sprintcar Grand Prix last season, this was a pleasing result for a committee that was short on experience going into the season.

Life Member of Riverside Speedway Steve Dryden won the Streetstock Competitor Of The Year Award, Dryden who was contracted to the Rotorua club last season won the New Zealand Streetstock Grand Prix along with the North Island Streetstock Championship in what was a stellar season for the veteran driver. Dryden always had a goal to win the North Island title but had to be contracted to a North Island club but was always on hand at Riverside to lend a hand at local meetings.

Oreti Park Speedway was represented by Hayden Brookland who won the Junior Solo Rider Of The Year Award, Brookland is an up and coming star of Solo racing and the award was a well deserved one, and reward for the efforts himself and his family have given the sport over a number of years.

The Pits Media scooped two awards, Best Event Coverage for the New Zealand Sidecar Championships, and the most prestigious media award being the Best Media Support. This was a fitting reward for a crew who work so hard away from home every weekend of the speedway season. Jason Gutteridge and his team run the broadcast van out of Invercargill, travelling the length of the country to cover every major speedway event, then get it edited to a point where it is TV ready. All the big meetings including Riverside and Oreti Park make it to Maori TV where it has some of biggest motorsport following in the country. The Pits TV was also picked up this season in America on Speed Shift TV taking New Zealand and Southland Speedway worldwide.