Today is the day to head down to the Heavy Trax Hire Central Motor Speedway in Cromwell, as speedway’s fastest and most powerful cars are competing. 

Today is the day to head down to the Heavy Trax Hire Central Motor Speedway in Cromwell. There is triple the excitement with speedway’s fastest and most powerful cars competing in the Hydraulink War of the Wings round 4, the Christmas Champs, and ending with the rough and tumble of stock cars. 

If you’ve never been to speedway, sprint cars competing in the War of the Wings are the fastest cars, reaching around 160kph on the straights. 

These V8-powered, methanol fuelled 800 to 900 horse power 'winged demons' will roar and snarl, slip and slide on the speedway’s 500 metre clay track. 

As well as today at the War of the Wings, sprint cars will be racing in the King of Cromwell series, with Round 3 on January 1 and Round 4 on January 9. 

The stock cars will also be crashing and smashing today and on New Year’s Day. 

These heavyweights are custom-built, weighing in at 1500 kg with up to 4 litres of motor up front, and they pack a loud, metal-crunching punch. 

Brad McKee is happy to talk to anyone about stock cars. Image supplied. 

Around 30 stockcars will compete at each meeting, the biggest ever field for Cromwell. 

This was made possible by Cromwell-based stockcar driver Brad McKee with support from club vice-president, Andy Reddy. 

Growing up in Clinton, Brad said he always loved the heavy metal contact of stockcar racing. However when his contracting work brought him to Cromwell, he found stockcars were not a class regularly raced at Central Motor Speedway. 

Brad said he sold his stockcar, and got into production class. After a few seasons he decided it was time to bring New Zealand’s oldest and most popular speedway class to his home track.

He bought a chassis, found a Cromwell rental property with garaging and set about building a Falcon powered stockcar. 

With Andy and the local committee on board Brad said he got commitments from six stockcar owners to become Central Motor Speedway contracted ‘T’ drivers, and the 2020/2021 season launched with stockcars as a club class. 

“To really kick-start stockcars and grow the class, it was important to have a big field to bring holiday crowds to the excitement, fun and spectacle of stockcar racing,” explains Brad. 

“Having stockcars here as a class also provides another racing option that can start for a fairly affordable $10,000 and then go to over $100,000.

“My new stockcar, 89t, cost around $25,000.

“For me, what gives stockcar racing its own special challenges are the other drivers. 

“Some aim to steer clear of trouble to take a win, while others like to block or try crashing you out of the race.

“Even then, these cars are so strong and safety orientated, mechanical or chassis damage is fairly limited and driver injuries very rare.

“I also love is the age range, there’s a 75 year old guy who still regularly races, and the fact there are quite a few lady stockcar drivers.”

Brad said there is a lot more to stockcars so feel free to visit him in the pits today. He’ll be with his car 89t.

Gates open at 2pm today, racing starts at 4pm.