BK Halliday claims WA Modlite title at Broome Speedway’s Shinju Stampede

Patience has paid off for Broome’s BK Halliday, who last night was crowned WA’s modlite champion in a drama-filled feature race during Broome Speedway’s Shinju Stampede. For much of the race Halliday was running as comfortable bridesmaid to fellow Broomie Glen Dearle who had breezed through the heats to start the final race in pole position. But there was a dark horse on the track in the form of Rob Kirk, who spent most of the race up on three wheels as he pushed his vehicle to its limits to keep with the race leaders. Kirk was helped by consistent restarts — there were eight in total — which allowed him to take advantage of his quick acceleration to keep the pressure on Halliday and Dearle. Halliday briefly took the lead following the second restart, only for Dearle to tear back past him down the home straight. Three quickfire restarts threatened to turn the race on its head — first Blake Webb snuck into third before spinning out to end his night, then Halliday came off the track and was pushed back to sixth on the grid. He quickly moved back through the field to fourth, aided by Warren Minshull pulling out, while up the front an enthralling battle was playing out between Dearle and Kirk. Kirk was breathing down Dearle’s neck and, sensing an opportunity on the back turn went for a rare diving run around the outside — most of his aggression had come down the inside around the first bend to this point. But he pushed his machine too hard and spun out, resulting in a move to the back of the pack as another restart was called. Up until this point Dearle had run a clean race out in front, but he was unable to keep control and spun his car out on the second turn, which promoted Halliday from the abyss to the top of the order ahead of Con Menheere and Kirk at the restart. Halliday and Kirk broke away quickly but the race leader went wide, leaving Kirk with that long-awaited passage through the inside to poke his nose in front. Dearle spun again in the same place and Kirk put daylight between him and the rest of the field and seemingly had one hand on the trophy. But speedway always throws up curve balls and, with one lap to go and no real chance of any challenge, Kirk spun on the same place as Dearle, leaving Halliday to come through to the top of the grid on the final restart, minus Dearle whose night was finished. Halliday made no mistake in finishing the last lap to claim the WA Modlite title ahead of Kirk and Chriss Kounis