Words: Daryl Shuttleworth
Images: Jo Broadhead Photography
Even a severe thunderstorm warning wasn’t going to stop the team at Powderworx Central Motor Speedway from kicking off the New Zealand Speedway for 2026 on New Year’s Day.
While the clouds may have been black, the temperatures sat in the mid-twenties, attracting a good, festive crowd trackside to take in the New Year’s Showdown meeting presented by BMac Sheetmetal.
Each grade ran heat races that determined grid draws for a winner-take-all Grand Prix-style feature.
The humidity and warm temperatures created a speedy racing surface that saw lap records broken across two grades.
Trent Ainsley’s long-standing Youth Ministock record was broken by Marcel Vlaanderen of Christchurch. Unfortunately, in the race in which he broke the record, he was disqualified, so it didn’t count. It did, however, trigger the lap scorers to look back and see that he had actually broken the record in the previous race also.
American Sprintcar driver Joel Myers Jnr was the current lap record holder, equalling fellow American Buddy Kofoid’s record he set in 2018.
Myers Jnr looked super fast, and without even looking at the lap times on the monitor, you could simply tell by watching that something special was unfolding. The young American punched out a 13.171 to smash the previous time set.
Saloons turned out some of the best races of the two-day weekend, with great wheel-to-wheel racing, with some of the best drivers from the deep south entered.
Cromwell’s George Phillips got off to a flying start in Heat 1, battling the lead with clubmate Phil Burgess for the first couple of laps, before Burgess slipped past for the lead.
Soon after this, Cromwell’s Mike Verdoner came into Turn 3 from third and tried to slide down the inside of Phillips, but was carrying too much pace and hit him hard, sending both cars around.
Phillips was allowed to take his place back in the grid, clearly unhappy about the contact, while Verdoner would go to the rear of the field.
From the restart, things remained clean. Phillips challenged Burgess but wasn’t able to make a pass, Burgess taking the win, with Phillips second and Riverside’s Graham Williamson third.
Heat 2 started well with several great battles happening throughout the pack.
Up front, Phillips and Verdoner fought it out again, while Cromwell’s Jason Gold was right with the frontrunners, as was Dunedin’s Travis Smith, who had shown great pace throughout the weekend.
Smith had started on pole and kept the big guns at bay until Lap 7, when Riverside’s Jeff Richardson got the big ‘don’t ask’ from Burgess in Turn 3, sending him into the wall at pace, resulting in a caution period while Richardson’s car was recovered.
With three laps remaining, Smith got off to a great start and held off all challengers to take the win. Verdoner secured second ahead of Phillips.
As the cars rolled out for their 20-lap winner-take-all feature, the heavens opened, and the track began to look as greasy as a politician’s promise. To all the drivers’ credit, they drove well, and the rain didn’t seem to affect how fast these cars were going until deep into the race.
Phillips started on pole and drove away from the pack, showing the form we were used to seeing as he gets to grips of his new Stealth machine.
As the rain got heavier, Phillips hit back markers and needed to negotiate a way past without the likes of Smith and Verdoner catching him.
Verdoner ran into mechanical dramas late in the race, putting him out of contention.
Phillips dived down the inside of Dunedin’s Calvin Todd into the tight Turn 1, the pair made contact, but Phillips managed to sneak past and go on to claim the win. Second went the way of Smith, with Burgess benefiting from Verdoner’s issues to claim third.
At the conclusion of the race, Speedway New Zealand Officials relegated Phillips two spots for his contact on Todd, with Smith now the Saloon feature winner.
Youth Ministocks missed their feature due to the downfall of rain. They rolled out on track, but looked to be having more fun slipping and sliding in the warm-up laps, showing that starting this race would result in disaster.
The grade ran races earlier in the day, where the opening win went to Marcel Vlaanderen, who also claimed the lap record.
Christchurch’s Jack Anderton won the second heat . It was a weekend to celebrate for Anderton, who secured the overall points win with the results combining Riverside Speedway and Central Motor Speedway. Second was Dylan Johnston and Danica Pickles was third, both from Christchurch.
James Westerman of Cromwell continued on his fine form from the Christmas meeting, claiming the Heat 1 win in Production Saloons. He then followed this up with a solid win in Heat 2 and rolled on to win the feature and the New Year’s Day Showdown by over five seconds from Riverside’s Blake Hamilton in second and Aven Erskine in third.
Dylan Prattley was on a roll in Stockcars also, three race wins at the Christmas meeting, followed up by a win in Heat 1 at the showdown.
Prattley, however, had to settle for second in Heat 2, with Cromwell clubmate Luke Fallow breaking the winning streak.
Fallow then went on to win the feature, with Dunedin’s Ricky Boulton second and Cromwell’s Carl Gable third overall.
Six Shooters produced some of the best racing of the event. Heat winners were Kirk Hawkins of Ruapuna in Heat 1, and Cromwell’s George Hedlheat in Heat 2. The latter backed it up with a win in the 15-lap feature. Mason Whelan came home second with Kadin Cracknell, his Riverside clubmate, capping off an impressive weekend in third.
The final grade to run was Sprintcars, and the numbers were lower than usual, so the drivers decided to run “Old Guns Vs. Young Guns”, with the five youngest drivers going up against the five oldest, or more experienced, we might say.
The Young Guns took victory in Heat 1 courtesy of Joel Myers Jnr, and he doubled down in Heat 2, also breaking the lap record.