Joblin drives off with another title
Former double national superstock champion Simon Joblin kept up his incredibly consistent record at major events when he won the Global Challenge at the Robertson Holden Speedway.
More than 40 of the country’s top superstock drivers were forced into qualifying for the 26 places up for grabs to join the four international drivers in a three-heat final in Palmerston North on Saturday night, where just completing each of the three races was likely to put you in the top 10 overall.
Joblin’s third, fourth and sixth places kept up his amazing record over the past 11 years since winning the 2005 New Zealand title in Dunedin. Saturday’s win puts the older of the three Joblin brothers into a select group who have won the New Zealand, North Island and Grand Prix titles as well as the World 240s.
The action started in the first couple of laps of the opening heat of the Palmerston North Partsworld Global Challenge, when one of the Australian visitors, Shane French, was left with nowhere to go in the pit corner and was rolled and left on his roof.
The race also took out national champion and one of the favourites, William Humphries, who was left hanging in the air on top of Scott Miers’ car. After being given the opportunity to extricate themselves they were both removed from the track and out of contention for the title.
Popular Nelson visitor Brett Nicholls took out the first heat from pole, ahead of Jake Baker and Joblin.
Hawke’s Bay’s Quinn Ryan won the second heat ahead of up-and-coming Palmerston North driver Zane Dykstra and the flying Graeme Barr, who put himself in the hunt to become the first driver to win the title twice and take home the coveted Lynette Denton Memorial Trophy, after seemingly coming from nowhere.
Wellington’s Richard Gaskin won the third heat from Peter Bengston but both drivers, like so many, paid for failing to finish one of the three heats.
Barr finished third but Joblin, knowing he had a big points lead, stayed out of trouble to finish sixth and win the title by four points from Barr, with Wellington’s Dale Robertson four points further back in third. Defending champion David Lowe and Nicholls were fourth equal.
There’s at least one place up for grabs in the Palmerston North Panthers, with Jack Miers out for the season, and veteran Ron Tye is making every post a winning one for himself at the moment.
There’s never been any doubting Tye’s blocking ability but, in his debut for the Panthers last week, he showed plenty of pace to win the team’s race against the Hawke’s Bay Hawkeyes. Then on Saturday, he brilliantly rolled Ryan in the third heat.
Dion Mooney won the one-race Brent Lowe Memorial Trophy after race leader Bryce Jensen was twice taken out by Luke Miers, although he still managed to sneak back into second ahead of Luke Healey and Brandon Jurgeleit.
The Palmerston North Pumas stockcar team have in recent years struggled to match their national-title exploits of a decade ago, but the new team showed with their win over the Wellington Young Guns they could again be a major threat at national level.
After appearing on the back foot against Wellington, Kyle Lampp turned things around by holding up the Wellington race leader, allowing team-mate Luke Miers into a lead he never relinquished.
Lampp then rolled Wellington’s Paul Gaskin, while, at the other end of the track, Daniel Burmeister ended the race for Wellington’s Taylor Lampp.
Josh Kahui tried his hardest to slow Luke Miers down but the promising youngster kept smashing his way past. It ended a clean sweep for Palmerston North, with Lowe second and Burmeister third.
Crashes halted half the sidecar races, but the three that were run saw Tony Hislop and Matt Stewart easily win two races, while national champions Russell Stuart and Andrew Parker showed they’ll be the drivers to beat when the national title is decided early next year. In both crashes, the swingers came off and were injured.
Kristi Wackildene, riding with Wayne Lett, suffered concussion. Lori Teddy, riding with Craig Sowry, was taken to hospital with four broken ribs, a broken shoulder blade and concussion.