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Dean Brindle one of the crowd favourites powered on to a major upset win when he fought off the strong American challenge to secure the Ginza Bargains NZ Sprintcar Champs at the Robertson Holden Speedway Palmerston North on February 22 in his Don Ott Powered J&J Race Chassis Car. Dean proved to be cool, calm and collected, and thoroughly deserved his victory after Jonathon Allard punctured while leading. Brindles' new motor arrived back from USA 3 days before, and went into the champs after a month out of the seat. Runner-up was USA's Ricky Logan, who made a desperate last lap pass on 18a Greg Pickerill.
The qualifiers from Saturday night lined up in two dashes determine the first twelve grids for the A Main, with the inner row determined in the first dash and the outer in the second. 0usa Jonathon Allard started from pole in the opener, but was outfoxed by 18a Greg Pickerill who took the lead, only to be passed in turn three by Allard who used plenty of the grass. Allard took the win, from Pickerill, 6p Nelson Hartley.
Dash #2 saw 10usa Ricky Logan and Dean Brindle on pole. 22a Dean Brindle proved again that the outside line was favourable by beating Logan off the line, and powering away for an upset win. Logan was second from 51m Rodney Wood.
Dash - Outside: 22a Dean Brindle, 10usa Ricky Logan, 51m Rodney Wood, 57m Aaron McConachy, 48t Jason Scott - Fastest Lap: 22a - 14.0997
NZ Sprintcar Champs Final - 25 laps
The Sprintcars and drivers lined up on the start finish line to be introduced to the large crowd to witness 16000 collective horse powers to be unleased. With the introductions over the cars were pushed off and a 4-wide salute to the fans set the tone as the cars thundered into action to determine the 2008/09 NZ Sprintcar Champion. The starting grids were as follows, 0usa, 22a, 18a, 10usa, 6p, 51m, 1nz, 57m, 19a, 48t, 78a, 21v, 66m, 71a, 24w, 7p, 68m, 8a, 11p, 4p
The green flag dropped and turn one proved to be the action corner with Skinny Colson spinning and causing a 6-car accident involving Halcrow, O'Connor, Harris, Easton and Menefy. Untangled, all were able to restart, with Colson resuming on grid 13.
The restart, and all race away the second time around, with Allard getting the jump from Dean Brindle and powering into the distance with Logan in third. The laps were counting down and on lap seven with no interruptions, lap traffic were beginning to play a part. When Menefy in 19th place and Allard came together while completing an inside passing move, and clipped the 4p sprintcar. Both cars were crashed out with Allard picking up a flat right rear and Menefy losing a wheel altogether.
This handed the race lead to Dean, who was again able to leave Logan in his dust from the restart. It took another eight laps to again catch the lapped traffic, with Dean passing Ian Easton and Logan unable to do so for a vital few laps. Colson moving up quickly from seventh by lap 20 spinning himself in turn one and bringing on the yellow lights.
The pressure was again on Brindle as his right rear tire appeared to be deflating with only five laps to run, this time Dean had two lapped cars between him and Logan. Pickerill managed to get the jump on the 10usa and take second place, however Logan pulled out a striking passing move on Pickerill as they went under the white flag. There was to be no stopping Dean who had cleared off into the distance while trying to keep his tyre inflated to record a fantastic victory.
Dean stopped the car on the start finish line, Deflated right rear tyre, climbing the fence to wave to all the people who had just witnessed the Kiwi beating the USA drivers and the cream of the best New Zealand racers to win the prestige's NZ 1 New Zealand Title.
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