NOSTALGIA, NEWSTALGIA, CALL IT WHAT YOU LIKE — THE ANNUAL NOSTALGIA DRAGS ARE ALWAYS A HIT WITH CROWDS AND RACERS ALIKE!

The annual Nostalgia Drags hosted by Bay Rodders is well known to be one of the best drag meetings of the year, and, once again, was held on Easter Sunday. If you are into old cars going stupidly fast, the Penske Commercial Vehicle Nostalgia Drags 2016, as it was titled this year, was the place to be. For once the day was fine and clear, and while the racer numbers were down a little on previous years, there was an air of confidence that a great day of racing lay ahead. Sadly, that bastard Murphy had other ideas, and qualifying had no sooner started when down came the rain. Thankfully, it didn’t last long, but was enough to temporarily dampen spirits as well as the track. Undeterred by the downpour, the fantastic team at Meremere Dragway sprang into action and the tractors were soon out scrubbing the track to remove the bulk of the surface water before the racers on street tyres were called out to assist. The Nostalgias is about having fun in old cars, with most classes running DYO as a competition leveller and just a few brackets racing heads up, which does provide some very interesting racing too. The DYO format is not all about having the fastest car, it is about being consistent, but this is still a meeting where some of the country’s quicker street cars came out to play and try their luck. While there were a few noticeably absent, the fields were still impressive, with over a dozen cars running consistently in the 12s or quicker — very impressive, given the nature of the meeting. Robert Isle had his ’65 Mustang screaming, setting the lowest ET in qualifying with an impressive 10.67, but Ian Rainbow had the speed covered at 133.33mph in his ’50 Chev Business Coupe. Neither, however, were up to the pace of Geoff Sadler who pushed his little ’32 Ford coupe to consistent 10.30s in the low-130mph range. Impressive for a regularly driven hot rod that is driven to and from the track, and would be driven to Repco Beach Hop 16 a few days later. The competition was fierce once racing got underway, with tight racing in every bracket, although some were more spectacular than others. With 35 cars in the Pre-’48 class, it was going to take a while to find a winner, but many seemed keen to eliminate themselves with over a dozen red lights or breakouts in the early rounds. Number one qualifier Geoff Sadler was asleep at the tree