Waiheke Dirt Track Club

Waiheke Dirt Track Club
by James Littlewood

It’s an age old argument you’ll hear from Bluff to Auckland and beyond. People who live in small towns are always trying to convince you that where they live has everything that New York has, but maybe in a diluted form. Maybe... but this misses the whole point of small places, which is that they have things that big places just don’t, won’t or can’t.

There’s no finer example than the Waiheke Dirt Track Club. It’s a little corner of Waiheke that’s always captured my imagination. I’ve been passing by it in cars, buses and bikes for years: this perfectly manicured oval of dirt with a gravelly pit and a 15 foot wire-mesh fence. It promises noise, dust and grease in large quantities: things in which eight-year-old me hates present-day me for having long lost any interest. And still, it beckons.

So when Heather invited present-day me and the kids to stay at Rocky Bay, and I accepted, and then found out there was a race meet while we were there, I couldn’t hide my excitement. Heather looked a bit reluctant at first. But she was thoroughly decent about it, and even shared some of the photographic duties. The five minute bus ride from Rocky Bay took us right there. We followed the sign saying “public entrance” but found ourselves in the pit. Exciting enough, but we knew we were in the way, copping dirty looks from skinny petrol heads before a nice guy in a mullet pointed us the right way.

The best approach is from the south side of the track. There’s a lovely little kanuka-shaded track leading through a gate to a grassy bank with plenty of sun, plenty of shade and plenty of views of the action.

The officials’ starting box issued vital proclamations over a tin can PA system.

“Kids, steer clear of the pond by the hairpin: we’ve not fenced it yet and it’s dangerous.”

“Minor delay here folks. Brent’s got something pluggy going on. Y’right there, Brent?”

***“Nobody open Craig’s bonnet just yet. Quite a bit of gas under there.”***Otherwise, it was a steady stream of lesser known hits by Tom Petty: perfect.

The cars were hilarious. There was this big white thing, maybe a Corvette or a Trans Am or something, but which looked more as if a Mad Max character had converted a chest freezer. It was so much more powerful than the rest of the pack that it has a half-lap handicap at the start. Mercifully, this put it right in front of the crowd. It rolled into position and throbbed menacingly: duggada duggada duggada … a gang of young kids - mostly boys - crowded the chicken-wire at the nearest spot, yelling their encouragement. “Let’s go! number 3, let’s go!”

All the cars combined roughly derelict bodies with highly tuned everything else. One car had its entire boot missing. Not just the lid, but more or less everything behind the rear axle was simply not there. Seemed logical: it’s not as if anyone was about to take it out shopping. Most cars had windscreens replaced with the steel mesh used for reinforcing poured concrete. But this seemed to be optional: some still had glass.

It took a while to set up a race. Cars would do a few laps, then maneuver into their grid positions. Sometimes they broke down, requiring a competitor to push them back into the pit, or to enable a jump start, before doing another slow lap and back into position.

Eventually a guy leaned out of the starting box, waved a coloured flag and they’re off: vroom. It’s understandable that people get hooked on the noise. And the smell - that admixture of dust and burned hydrocarbons: what’s not to like? It may be pollution, but as the kids pointed out, “it’s good that they find ways to keep using old cars, eh.”

The first bend is always the one to watch, when the pack is still compacted and the need for speed often results in prangs. The endgame is also jam packed with hijinx, as powerful cars move through the pack to challenge the pole position.

The lady sitting next to us was happy to talk us through the basics. The big grunty V8s are in a non-contact division. While there can be scuffles at the corners, the idea is to get the car off the track in one piece and they can’t just go ramming into each other.

The “jalopies class” on the other hand offers plenty of this kind of sport. One driver did a brilliant job of holding onto a slender lead for the entire race. Then on the final lap, the second placed car not only connected, but drove the leader right off the track. Take that! It seemed a bit unfair to me, but this is the Wacky Races.

Our friendly neighbour’s interest picked up for the third event: the junior’s class. Her 14 year old granddaughter - Billy - was behind the wheel of an old purple hatchback with natty racing stripes. I rudely commented that her car had a pleasantly quieter engine than the others’. “Hmm,” said our neighbour. “I prefer the louder ones, myself.”

Billy had a good race. Her rig wasn’t powerful enough to hold on to her pole position, but she wasted the first-timer behind her. Then the leading car spun out, stalled and couldn’t restart, and Billy zoomed home to black and white checkers. Not only that, but the first timer spun out behind her, too. Billy cleaned up as the tractor (replete with an overhead mini-car spoiler for shade) scraped the rest of the pack off the track.

It went on like this for ages: lap after lap after lap. Eventually, we wandered off to find some lunch at the historic Rocky Bay Hall Cafe. Most of the walk back to Rocky Bay was downhill, and in more kanuka bush. We got lost once, but it didn’t matter. We were happy enough just wandering around.

Image Credits: James Littlewood