New Zealand Championship Winners (part one).The Century Batteries Finals had plenty of upsets not least the bad weather that canned all of Saturdays qualifying nor the fact perhaps the event should have been postponed to another weekend letting the earth soak up some of the water and keeping the track and fans clean and dry!The upsets we wish to talk about are the racing variety like Chris Johnston and the Vernon and Vasey/ Harcourts Top Alky Dragster taking over the one round deficit of the Vincent family dragster when they sustained major engine damage in their top qualifying effort. How close was the Top Alcohol championship?  With CJ taking the win pushing Todd Vincent back from the front the Morice McMillin / Ryan Sheldon Scrap Palace Funny team was just 10 points behind them and the John Neilan Digga Dragster was just 6 points behind them! Considering the three dragsters have 5 second potential (Neilan’s have run 5.8s) the Chevy powered Scrap Palace sponsored machine shows consistency and rounds will get you in the top three. Possibly the closest of all the divisions at the end of the season has to go to Top Doorslammer racers Ross Taylor in the Taylor & Taylor 57 Chevy and Chris Tynan and his Scrap Palace 55 Chevy. Just 5 points separating these two after Tynan won the final when Taylor hurt his engine in the burnout. How close was Ross from losing the championship? If Tynan had run anything under a 6.45 backing up his second round 6.34 the record and bonus points would have secured him a second championship! Fortunately for Taylor the Scrap Palace 55 shook badly on the bye forcing Tynan to lift.With many of the class not doing all the rounds it was really a two horse race but with Wayne Hussey’s Super Nova less than a hundred points behind in spite of missing the Digga round it could have been interesting if he had gone to Christchurch. The Ferrari of Mike Witteveen and 58 Chevy of Dave West may very well have made an impact on the points standings too if they had ventured down to the Digga round.With some serious entries on the build like Parry Hunts Alan Johnson PSI powered 69 Camaro and Rod Benjies / John Dillon’s billet supercharged Berretta nearing completion maybe this will entice David Green and Mark Thomas out of retirement and make Top Doorslammer the division to watch next year! Competition was again taken out by long time supporter and traveller Ian DeBoo, Ian’s 23 T Altered has again taken the Championship with consistency and doing the rounds and if Johnny Alsop in the Alsop racing 41 Willy’s could just do a few more events in the “other” island, as could Trevor Watson they would make this division a little more competitive for all.   Top Street again had some of the best racing in the series with the top three competitors just 26 points separating them and closely followed by forth competitor Gary Bogaart whom could not make the Trust House round in Masterton. This is Roger Binnema’s second NZ championship title in the Cylinder Head services Honda Accord and with Graeme Bates in the twin Turbo'd Vauxhall Cresta just 15 points behind it will be tuff to make it three and last years champ Rob Kelly in the NZ Car Parts Toyota just 1 point behind Bates all these guys are going to be doing some late nights during the off season! Sport Compact was an all Hayden Rowell affair with Hayden over a hundred points clear of Simon Steffek and Paraparaumu’s Stuart Lawton even without having to contest the final round. Disappointing for the fans around the country considering the performance of these cars is staggering to watch. Competition Bike was another that needed good performances and rounds to win and one competitor that has always supported the division with both is Auckland’s Dean Veale on his Suzuki powered machine taking his second championship title with long time competitor Ian Hilder having the performance just not the rounds to make an impact. We’ll cover the Group Three and Four divisions early next week after they have been ratified. At which time we will post up all the winners.