With the Canterbury championship on the line in all classes close competition was the hallmark of racing at Ruapuna Speedway on Saturday evening.

Jamie Duff backed up being the first South Islander home in the New Zealand sprintcar title last weekend when taking out the provincial title. Duff and Scotti Savage each took out one of the qualifying heats while also claiming a second placing which saw them start on the from row for the championship feature.

Rookie Modified Sprint driver Anthony Dawson won his first race at Xpress Printing House Ruapuna Speedway last night
the quickly improving Dawson has shown in his short carreer he isn't afraid to mix it with the best and has gone toe to toe with the best drivers in canterbury, but last night he put it altogether and took out the second heat of the Modified Sprints

Dawson's is supported by his extended family including his grandfather who pit crews for him and all of them were very excited after the race. The only small dissapointment was some of his other regular crew members had a wedding to attend and missed the rookie drivers maiden win.

"Good on ya Ants"

Brian Fridd took out his first TQ feature win last night at Xpress Printing Ruapuna Speedway.  After a horror run in the NZ TQ Title and repeated mechanical issues hampering the team for the first part of the season the Peter Diver plumbing sponsored TQ put a tidy performance together to take out the TQ feature race. 

The race wasn't without incident as Calvin Mathers flipped his TQ while entering turn one corner the flip was more impressive as his car landed on all four wheels and continued tra

Allan ‘Wako’ Wakeling completed the ,double, when he took out the second leg of the Sprintcar Summer Slam when the Auckland driver won the Latimer Hotel and Conference Centre Gold Cup after having already won the Salute to Goodie the previous evening at Xpress Printing House Ruapuna Speedway.

Wakeling became the first driver to win the Gold Cup for a second time when heading home American Ricky Logan with Jamie McDonald (Auckland) in third place, with Wakeling’s form likely to see him among the favorite's for next Saturday’s New Zealand Championship at Cromwell.

Photos Brian Hopping - Video Kelvin Heany

New driver to the Midget ranks Blair Low put on a amazing display of driving last night before he got it all wrong and went for a spectacular crash - Low a former 2NZ Mini Sprint driver is now the driver of the ex Gary Robertson 19c midget and raced it for the first time last night. 

After initial setup problems in the first heat Low started the second heat from grid seven and was not expected to make progre

An amazing night of crashs seen Dean Brindle's sprintcar take a massive crash on the front straight at Xpress Printing House Ruapuna Speedway last night, Brindle was initially very upset with the incident but later accepted it as a racing incident.

Thanks to TJ from Mainland photos  for supplying the sequence of shots and Kelvin Heaney for the video

A number of spectacular crashs filled the night at Xpress Printing House Ruapuna Speedway before the Sprintcar Gold Cup was held and won by Alan Wakeling

4M Kerry Bartlett came off worst when he and Ray Baughan tangled in turn one sending Bartlett's car in to a wild tumble almost collecting Danny Mason in the process, Barletts car sustained considerable damage and was unable to start again.

Eight times New Zealand sprintcar champion, Allan Wakeling took out the second running of the Salute to Goodie Classic at XPH Ruapuna Speedway on Friday evening. The Aucklander headed home American, Ricky Logan, with local driver Matt Honeywell holding off Skinny Colson for third place with Christchurch’s Jamie Duff and Scotti Savage coming home in fifth and sixth place respectively.

Twenty two cars from throughout the country, plus Logan turned out to honour the memory of former NZ champion, Noel Goodwin, in the first of a double header in the Sprintcar Summer Slam at Ruapuna before the national title at Cromwell next weekend.

61i Chris Burns had a unfortunate accident when racing in the "Salute to Goodie" Sprintcar Feature Race last night
Burns had showed good pace in an earlier heat race but got caught out by a slowing car in the main event.

With Burns likely to be out for tonights meeting there will still be twenty two cars competing for the sought after Sprintcar Gold Cup.

Photo of the Week was caught by our roving photographer couple of Kevin and Michelle - they caught the end of  Brian Bradshaw's  Modified Sprint crash which proved to be quite nasty, Brian suffered a broken pelvis and cracked hip from the incident.

Brian has a long history in motorsport and we hope that he recovers quickly and we can see him on the track again.