Speedway ace cooks up another title
Shaun Cooke leads Jamie Larsen through the turn at the start of the four-lap run-off to decide the New Zealand minisprint championship at Stratford Speedway on Saturday. Waikato racer Shaun Cooke has got his hands on the New Zealand minisprint trophy again.
Cooke, who had won the championship four times previously, is now back in possession of the trophy he last held six years ago after capturing the championship at Stratford Speedway at the weekend.
He topped his qualifying group on Friday night and raced clean and fast on Saturday to make his way towards the front of the field in all three races.
He finished fourth in heat one from grid 11, won the second heat from a front row start and then finished sixth in heat three from grid 19 but still had to compete against defending champion Jamie Larsen in a four-lap run-off to decide the champion.
After a false start at the first attempt of the run-off, Cooke grabbed the lead at the first turn of the restart after the pair touched and Larsen momentarily lost control of his race car. Larsen pulled infield soon after.
Cooke nearly won the title outright but a late passing move by Larsen on the finish line of the third heat gave him the point he needed to force a run-off.
Larsen, who is now ranked No 2, was lucky to make the finals at all. A crankshaft failure after the second qualifying heat on Friday night caused him to miss the third qualifying heat. Fortunately he had scored enough points.
Three competitors who didn’t have luck on their side were New Zealand No 2 Jade Barnett, who qualified at the top of his group only to be rolled just metres from the start line during the first heat of the finals; Christian Hermansen, who qualified third in his group but blew his engine just three laps into the first heat of the finals; and Stephen Buys, who went into the third heat sitting fourth on points but was rolled in the opening laps of heat three.