Taranaki stumble at NZ intercentre event
After managing to win only three games from nine each on Friday, both the Taranaki men’s and women’s representative bowls teams will almost certainly miss out on Saturday’s quarterfinals at the New Zealand intercentre event in Wellington.
Both teams are well down the pecking order in their sections, which consist of six provinces. Only the top two will advance to post section.
In the men’s, Marlborough and Wairarapa lead the charge, with both on 21 points, after seven wins.
With nine points, Taranaki is fourth but a long way off catching one of the top two.
Dean Elgar posted two wins, 25-16 over Keanu Darby (South Canterbury) and 25-13 against Jim Ballard (Counties). He fell 25-17 to Adam Haywood (Thames Valley) in the middle round.
John Roberts had his best match in the opening pairs rubber, as he and Darren Goodin won 20-15 over John Kanawa (Counties).
But Roberts battled after that, the pair losing 18-14 to Les O’Donovan (Wairarapa) and then 20-12 to Andre Smith (Marlborough).
The four of John Garrud, Jordan Linn, Mark Anderson and Craig Johns lost the lot.
There was some encouragement in the 13-9 loss to Sanjhe Prasad (Marlborough), but that evaporated when the side were beaten 14-8 by David Clark (Counties) and hit a real low point with a 22-6 thrashing from Mark Mathews (Thames Valley) in the last round.
The all-New Plymouth four of Anne Duggan, Anne Brophy, Faye Gecse and Maree Gadsby were the pick of the Taranaki women.
They beat Reen Stratford (Wanganui) 14-13 and Gayle Melrose (Counties) 21-9, before being edged out 15-12 by Barbara McGregor (Nelson).
Rhonda Adams claimed her first singles win in the third round, beating Christine Buchanan (Central Otago) 25-15. She had earlier lost two tough encounters – 25-14 to Gaylene Harvey (Counties) and 25-12 to Kirsten Edwards (Nelson).
In the pairs, Chris Commane and Gloria Shaw lost all three games.
They went down 25-10 to Margaret O’Connor (Central Otago), 20-13 to Carolyn Crawford (Dunedin) and 21-16 to Anne Loveridge (Wanganui).
Central Otago and Nelson share the lead on 18, with Taranaki in fifth on nine.
The remaining two section rounds, plus the quarterfinals, will be played on Saturday, ahead of Sunday’s finals. Taranaki Stockcar Club organisers are hopeful work carried out on the surface at Stratford Speedway this week has remedied the rough track that plagued the last three meetings.
The surface was renewed prior to the season in conjunction with a wall upgrade and although it hasn’t been the best, the track preparation team have been persevering with the material in an attempt to achieve a dust free surface that also provides good grip.
This week, lime chip has been added to the surface which will help to bind it together. Prior to the chip going in, the track was double ripped and rotary tilled.
It was then rotary tilled again to mix the lime and compacted with both a spiked and smooth roller.
The Quarter Midgets will be one of the first classes to try out the altered surface. It has been a number of years since the class has raced in Taranaki and a field of 14 will be on hand to race.
The cars, which are three quarters the size of a standard midget, are powered by motorcycle engines and are extremely fast.
Most cars these days are selfstarting but the odd one or two still require a push start as they did many years ago. The cars are incredibly quick and their smaller size ensures there are plenty of passing opportunity’s on the tight speedway tracks.
The class will run three races on the night, with five other classes also racing on the night, including the youth ministocks who will be competing for their Taranaki Championships.
William Hughes will try to defend his title against 28 other drivers. He has been in great form all season and will start the event with a real possibility of retaining possession of the trophy.
His toughest competition will likely come in the form of Will Hart, Brad Uhlenberg and Bradley Podjursky although other drivers who have shown good pace this season and could be a threat for the win include Liam Whelan, Alana Buckthought, Thomas Boniface and Flynn Johnson.
The stockcar class will compete for their King of the Mountain Championships, one of their last events for the season while the superstock class will race for their Best Pairs event. Midgets and streetstocks will complete the race program.
The latter has been drafted into the program to replace the modifieds and will race for the Olsen Memorial trophy.
The Modified class was meant to contest the Rusty Kay Memorial but there were not enough cars available due to damage sustained at last weekend’s North Island Championships. The Rusty Kay will now run on April 22.