Shortly before 7pm there was a grand parade of lots of really great looking race machinery that certainly whetted my appetite for the racing that was to come .

Things took a backward step after the grand parade when come 7pm the National Anthem was sung by some probably popular and talented singer on the infield . He then launched into singing some forgettable popular song which was transmitted to us via the stadium speakers which did an admirable job of distorting the sound  .

Finally the sprintcars fronted on the track and were pushed started in reasonable time . They then did some practice laps , then they did their old hat 4 wide salute , Then they did some more fast laps , then they finally progressed towards gridding up for their race . Thankfully things picked up from there on and the rest of the night was run as efficiently as possible . Mind you the six or seven roll overs caused some delays but I'm not moaning about that .

The venue was as magnificent as always , the restaurant was open before the meeting for those wanting a real feed and all staff I encountered  were pleasant and polite .

Commentary was by the resident team of Brian Kelly and Barry Brown along with guest voice Jamie McCarthy who continues to impress with his knowledge of cars and drivers . Good listening .

Food
I only had a hot dog and chips . The chips were fine but the hot-dog was about as good as the one I had at Huntly last week . I hope Auckland can satisfy my craving for a decent hot-dog next weekend .

Printed Program
A bit pricey @ $5.00 especially since the car listings weren't complete and some of the listings were incorrect . Professional looking but amateurish editing .

Agrade Stockcars
15 cars was probably the bare minimum acceptable on a track as big as Baypark . For the first race they were joined by Std Stock 45m driven by Nick Valance and his mission was to create havoc . His first victim was 16a Aaron Headington and he got guided infield in the altercation , no damage though  . Valance spent the rest of the race taking pot shots without great effect but it  made entertaining watching . 51m Rodney Wood won the first agrade race of the season . Actually Rodney would have won all three events on the night but in the second when he caught up to early leader 8h Dave Roigard he chose to spin the 8h and accidentally trapped himself for a short time and that was enough to allow 85h  Jarrod wade to hit the front by a distance that Wood could not re-gather .
The Agrade racing wasn't all that tame thanks to 19m Kerry Remnant taking exception to all the visiting cars and they in turn attempting to extract retribution . 337r Darcy Hunter may have been debuting  his latest Gordge rocket but he wasn't prepared to let Remnant have the upper hand and dealt some hefty blows to the 19h car leaving the 337r car looking well used by the end of the night . 
515r Stan Hickey  and 7a Dayne Wright were just two of the others prepared to clobber Remnant whenever the chance arose too .
Driver of the night for my money was Kerry Remnant .

Std Stocks
37 of everyone's favorite contact class fronted and turned on the usual mayhem they are renowned for . It's very hard to keep track of what's going on when sitting down one end of the large Baypark track and I missed the lead up action in all three of the roll overs in this section . I know that 71h Tony Wootton had his bumper to the fore in at least one of the incidents and combined with the antics I did see him performing I reckon he was my Std Stock driver of the night despite the fact he never got mobile for the final . I never did figure out who won the first heat but  81m Alister Mouat won the second and the feature .

Super Saloons
18 of the fire breathing monsters including some of the biggest names in the game . It was great to see the Chrysler/Mercedes / ?? hybrid Mick Quin 43p in the flesh . He didn't go half bad either and I expect with more laps run both driver and car will be a force to reckon with .
New comer to Super saloons was ex  NZ Streetstock Champion , ex agrade Stockcar driver and ex Ltd Saloon driver 74m Craig Ritchards in the Kevin Moore racecars built ex 9c Paul Williams Corvette .
Ritchards has been off the speedway circuit for the past couple of season although I'm told he has been fiddling about with a modified at Whitianga . 
His debut in Super Saloon was a sensation as his will to win is obvious to anyone watching and to see him almost being on the pace with the likes of 66s Skinny Colson bodes well for his future in the class . Not to mention the entertainment we will get from watching him . 
Skinny is still the man of the moment to watch though , charging through the fields lifting the inside front in the turns . He didn't have an all together great night though . One win and two dnf's was his lot . 
81m Dean Waddell came to the fore in the feature as he often does when the track starts to slick off . 3nz Donald Gregory was another that was right on the pace and picked up the heat two win .
Ltd Saloons
23 cars was a good showing and there were some good looker among them . 61m Mark Orchard was the first winner , 14 Geoff Kaye impressed all night and won heat two . Kaye might have won the feature too but there was a stoppage with Steve Williams getting the jump at the restart and he was far too quick to be caught . 
48m Phil Towgood looked the goods but car trouble was what mostly kept him out of the winners circle . .

Sprintcars
12 cars including 1nz Allan Wakeling debuting his new maxim which while not totally on the pace showed it's promise with a heat two win . 3nz Dean Brindle won the first and an on form 18a Greg Pickerill took the feature in his clean and bright yellow machine . Eyes were upon Joe Farem in the number 5m as he learns the ropes in his new class of race car .
Generally the racing was ok in this class but too much time is lost getting them running and gridded up .

Streetstocks 
22 Streetstocks put on a show of mix 'em up and roll 'em over . Three rolls to equal the happenings in the std stock class and a welcome permanent addition to the Baypark ranks .

Ministocks 
33 cars and a roll over as part of the show . Good racing without too much drama .

Overall
A great opening night for Baypark and realistically the extra few dollars at the gate are worth it purely for the venue let alone the bigger fields of cars than any other track has managed so far this season . All over and done with by 10 pm and that meant I was home at a reasonable hour .
 

The grand parade was impressive	Agraders at top speed
Nick Valance playing with Aaron Headington	Kerry Remnant short cutting across  15a Steve Pribicevich
The new Darcy Hunter battle wagon	Darcy Hunter sorting Remnant out
Rodney Wood biggest winner	7a Dane Wright tried sorting Remnant too
8h Dave Roigard and trick low/high body work	75m Les Lucas landed on his noggin
71h Tony Wootton just about went over	Wootton sure got 64m good
The 66's were in bother . Peter Church 66a	66m Craig Body
Std Stocks look classy these days	Skinny doing it there ....
........and here	Look out for 74m Craig Ritchards
Skinny broke a tyre	Dean Waddel gets going when the going's gone
Tony Cardwell had a good night until this in the last	Paul Carter in the wars
More pictures this way