With over 78 cars entered and a brilliant sunny day this event was looking to be a fantastic event and it was.

With Street Rodders and NZDRA teams working tirelessly from Saturday afternoon till finish time 5.30 Sunday the event had nothing but praise from racers, many travelling from Auckland, New Plymouth and Wellington.

Being the first time any vehicles of this calibre where going to be on the Tokoroa air strip it was going to be a big ask to get the required rubber down to run some good ET’s but as the day wore on the traction was definitely coming around.

Being the only venue not incorporating a concrete start line most high powered cars where not hooking on the hit but once the cars did rounds it started to come together, cars like Jeff Dobsons Camaro where only a few tenths of his usual times running 8.40s enough to take a win in the Top Doorslammer class against runner up Trevor Tynan in the out of retirement 65 Impala, Rhys Humphrie’s Cuda was still pulling some great wheelstands but broke a ring gear which ultimately cost him some valuable points although he is holding a narrow lead over rival Phil Hargreaves who was eliminated in the third round to eventual winner Dennis Lovegrove.

Because a field of normally aspirated Modified cars was available Ian Metz elected to run in Top Alcohol and if not for the fact he came up against Morice McMillin in the first round and Morice doing a great job of muscling the wayward Dodge to get to the stripe first Ian may have been the upset.

But the highlight for most would have been the wild 220 mph passes by John Neilan, besting with a 225 @ 7.0 seconds these were awesome from any angle.

This event next year will be bigger and better and the overwhelming support and fun had by the many teams that supported it will insure it will be.

Photos kindly supplied by Deb Jarvis