Western Springs speedway: Will it be a shabby end to Auckland's glorious sporting era?

Monday, 11 March 2019

The future of Speedway at Western Springs still hasn't been decided, despite being granted a temporary reprieve in March this year (this video was produced prior to the extension of the lease).

OPINION: Imagine having a home in your family for more than 90 years, and going out one day never knowing whether you'll be allowed to go back.

That will be how many in Auckland's speedway community feel this week as they prepare for the season close at Western Springs Stadium.

As it stands, the sport will be left homeless in Auckland at 10.30pm on Saturday, with the unrenewable Springs lease expired, and a re-location for next season seemingly too late to manage.

Local hero Barry Butterworth holds off American Mel Kenyon at Western Springs in 1974.

I went to the speedway a fortnight ago, for the first time in more than 30 years and was struck only then by what that really means.

* Western Springs speedway shutdown confirmed after lease is not extended past March

* Auckland mayor questions move to defer controversial Western Springs speedway relocation

Western Springs stadium could be redeveloped for cricket.

* Calls to investigate top official for 'hoodwinking' council over signed racing helmet**

This column is not about the rights and wrongs in the endless arm-wrestling over whether, when and where to move speedway, and free up Western Springs stadium for cricket.

It's about whether the focus is really on doing the right thing for the thousands of Aucklanders who invest time and money in competing in speedway, and the generations of families who turn up to watch.

Speedway, first with motorbikes, has been at the central Auckland track since 1929, with 'midget' cars since 1937.

Few sports and venues, apart from cricket and rugby at Eden Park, can boast that kind of continuity and history.

My speedway-going years were in its modern heyday, the late 1970s, when crowds up to a claimed 50,000 would pack in to see the NZ-Australia-United States test series, with legends such as American hall-of-famer Sleepy Tripp, who notched up a record nine wins in the 50-lap feature events.

One journalist recalls the crowds for one of the first clashes being so big, race-goers parked on the grass median strip on the adjacent north western motorway.

For seven years, Auckland Council which owns the venue through its agency Regional Facilities Auckland, has been planning to shift speedway, but despite the early warning, the end of the speedway's current, already-extended lease is nigh, with no future nailed down by councillors.

Everyone's positions have shifted over the years, more than once, in speedway-style collisions between hard-headed business people and politicians, and politicians squabbling amongst themselves.

A purpose-built venue to be created at the council's intended motorsport hub at Colin Dale Park seems certain, but how and when?

A deal seemed done until a council meeting in November turfed out the agreement, in a debate which seemed focussed on anything but creating an orderly move for one of the city's oldest sports.

Hopefully someone remembers those people I shared a Saturday night with a fortnight ago. The competitors in the Kiwi Kidz class, aged 8-16 years - some of them the third generation of racers in their family.

The grey-haired spectators who remember an era before the one I used to go to, the kids who took part in the dance contest on the terraces.

No-one wins if speedway has nowhere to go in Auckland next summer, no-one can say it is all someone else's fault.

But the competitors, their families and the fans have deserved a better, final or not, night at the springs.