It seems that nasty weather is plaguing midget racers on both sides of the globe this weekend.

Last night’s racing at Western Springs was cancelled after only 3 races when heavy rain fell on the first midget heat race of the night. A warm wet north easterly rain front dumped rain on Auckland over the last few days and speedway suffered because of it.

Speedway manager Dave Stewart was disappointed yesterday evening to have no rain date allowed for the event.

“I know we often have unpredictable weather here in Auckland but this weekend takes the cake, said a wet Stewart, all they guys wanted to race tonight and it is a real shame, the track looked as if it would be good and another Midget feature may have given some drivers a chance to show what they had for the NZ team.”

“The residents association and the courts have us restricted with less rain out dates than we have meetings and obviously we need the rain dates for the important race meetings, so this is real disappointing but we are forced to live with it.”

Meanwhile heavy snow storms and ice are playing havoc outside the relative comfort of the Tulsa Expo Centre indoor raceway in Oklahoma, USA where the 21st annual Chilibowl race is being run this weekend.

Five members of the six driver US team are competing at the famous winter season event. Dave Darland won the Friday night feature race and has drawn pole position for Saturday night’s 50 lap A-main race.

“We had a good night last night and there’s no better place to start the main event tonight than pole so I’m real happy with how things have gone, said Darland, the car ran perfectly and we are in great shape so far.”

Darland however is not so confident about the weather for his flight out of Tulsa to get to Auckland.

“I leave tomorrow with Brad Loyet and we don’t know how we’re getting out of here yet, the airport is snowed in and closed so we’ve got to get something sorted after the race.”

Another Team USA member Cory Kruseman didn’t fare so well in his preliminary races this week.

“I got caught up in a big pile up in my qualifing race and had to start from the rear, said the Californian native, I’ve been racing my butt off here and hopefully I’ll be able to transfer tonight into the main vent but we’ve got a way to go to do that now.”

The legendary sprint car and midget driver is concerned about the trip to NZ and getting out of a snowbound United States.

“There is so much snow here in Tulsa, we had another 10 inches last night followed by ice like you wouldn’t believe. There are 250,000 homes without electricity and all the airports within a couple of hundred miles are closed.”

“The whole US team is concerned about getting to LA so we can make our flights to Auckland.”

The first race of the International Midget World series takes place at Western Springs, Auckland on Thursday 18th January.

Back to News