Walsh wins the most races, but May wins the season crown at Super Rod presentation night.
Every speedway fan in the southwest of Victoria and many visiting American Sprintcar racers all know and love the sensational Super Rods – a home grown V8 amalgam of old school hot rods and sedan bodies. Running clockwise gives them another point of difference also.
But what really sets them apart is their old school style of back ‘em in speedway action.
This class has a long and proud history and has produced some incredible racers, some of whom have gone on to become standout Sprintcar Champions.
The next group of young guns are now emerging and taking the fight to the established stars and the next few years promises to be an intriguing and exciting period.
Held recently at Buckley’s in Geelong, the 24/25 season Presentation night was a close gathering of racers and family with all on-track rivalries put aside for a fun night.
The awards kicked off with the Premier Speedway Track Championship which fell to Jamie May, from Stan Marco Jnr, Paul Verhoeven, Ash Marshall and Paul Singleton.
The Western Cup Series was an initiative to have a series within a series that encouraged teams to travel away from the Southwest tracks like Premier and Simpson and consisted of five nights over 4 weekends at Hamilton, Redline, Horsham and Swan Hill.
The spectre of weather played its role in the series but a missed round by Shaun Walsh, who won every feature race run, proved critical as he was gazumped for the mini championship by rival Jamie May by a narrow margin. Walsh was magnanimous in his praise of May and took it on the chin.
Completing the championship positions were Michael Coad in 3rd from Marco Jnr, Singleton, Marshall, Verhoeven and Bailey Pitcher.
Next up were some of the most prestigious awards starting with the Rookie of the Year which belonged to Joshua Aston. Josh was busy working to fund his racing and family and was unable to attend but did have a speech prepared which was read out on his behalf, although when he wrote it he didn’t know what award he’d won.
Ash Marshall deservedly won the Most Improved Driver award for his performances in the AV19 Rat Rod machine.
Michael “Mocka” Grist was Encouraged to keep racing and the President’s award went to Mark Head, a kart racing convert with a new passion for Super Rods.
The next award is in the opinion of this writer the most prestigious as it’s voted on by peers – the Driver’s Driver Award.
In the world of competitive sport and racing, to have your peers recognise you is especially significant.
Sally Woolstencroft, who had a great season including a heat win on the fast banks of Premier Speedway, was amongst the high tally which included Marco Jnr and May but the big winner was youngster Bailey Pitcher who showed increased maturity and consistency to score a couple of feature wins as well as this great award.
The final award was to recognise the Seasons aggregate Champion and again it was a close-run thing. Unfortunately for some drivers who scored feature wins some of those were stand alone or invitational events that weren’t included in the point score.
As with the Western series, it was a fight between May and Walsh who shared almost equally 13 feature wins between them.
Walsh and May were clearly the top two competitors, but a few engine problems hurt Walsh’s consistency and May was able to take another Season Championship with brilliant speed. His greater tally of podium finishes proving the difference.
Coad, with an uncharacteristic 1 non-points scoring feature win only, was third just ahead of Marco Jnr (2 wins), Bailey Pitcher (2 wins), twin brother Jacob, Marshall, Verhoeven, Marco Snr and Adrian Rieck completed the top ten. Jamie Ackland was the only other feature winner in a non-points race but contested less than a handful of shows.
The last official function of the night was the raffle draw, which saw more people win a prize than those that didn’t (and still somehow, I missed out, ha ha) such was the staggering level of donations of prizes on offer. A huge thank you to all of those who donated or sourced some very impressive prizes from which the club was able to raise a surprising amount of money thanks to the deep pockets of those in attendance.
Finally, a big shout out to all of the clubs’ sponsors including:
Mega Auto Parts
Max Dumesny Motorsport
Ratio Control Engineering
Quest Geelong Central
EMC Trailers Australia
JD Race Parts
PWS Fabrication
Paul Delaney Cartage & Spreading
Highline
AK Agri Works
Avalon Raceway
Borderline Speedway
Premier Speedway
Humphries Racing
Cockys Automart
Shantel Singleton
Mr Race Fan
CEG Creations & Designs Photography.
Photos courtesy Kathryn Wines.