That help was most important in the last of the three races, in which Ireland finished third, fourth and fourth, for a total of 82 points.<\/p>\n
Robb had won the opener, but Ireland drove spectacularly from what might have been a forlorn start at 25 on the grid.<\/p>\n
Robb ran eighth in race two, enabling Ireland to enter the last with a small points buffer, but needing a Hawke\u2019s Bay chat to see how the win could be achieved.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple of locals were out to get me,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Pullen had dropped back in the points, so they decided on a strategy to protect Ireland, who was starting from 11 on the grid, rather than poking the bear and trying to eliminate the leading opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did a good job,\u201d said Ireland, who blew the gearbox in the first two laps and had to last the race in third gear.<\/p>\n
He reckoned someone was watching from above.<\/p>\n
Pullen had individual finishes of 14th, 12th and 8th to claim 8th place overall.<\/p>\n
The only previous driver to win two championships in a row was Peter Rees, of Gisborne, in 2012 and 2013. <\/p>\n
Caleb Ireland (centre), of Napier, on Saturday night after becoming only the second driver to win back-to-back New Zealand Stockcar Championship titles.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Hawke\u2019s Bay\u2019s biggest speedway meeting of the season will be staged this week, with 36 cars and crews in town for the New Zealand Saloons championships at Meeanee on Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n
The entries include defending champion and Christchurch racer Mark Osborne, targeting a record fifth title, 2024 and 2005 runner-up Chris Cowling, and fellow Tauranga driver Scott Hayward, who was third last year at Baypark.<\/p>\n
Among others will be home-track racers Grahame Strong, who was runner-up to Osborne at Meeanee in 2016, and multi-classes national champion, and former Hawke\u2019s Bay Magpies NPC rugby player, Jason Long.<\/p>\n
Racing starts at 6.30pm both nights, and the Hawke\u2019s Bay Superstock championships will be included on Saturday night with a field of 26.<\/p>\n
Hawke\u2019s Bay Speedway president Regan O\u2019Brien said a crowd of about 6000 had been reached \u201ca couple of years ago\u201d, but he\u2019d be \u201chappy\u201d with 3500-4000 this weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe weather\u2019s coming right,\u201d he said, hoping for continued improvement in the outlook, which has some showers forecast. \u201cHopefully it\u2019ll come right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ireland and Pullen won\u2019t be racing. Their cars remain in Christchurch awaiting the drivers\u2019 return for more racing in the south next month.<\/p>\n
Doug Laing is a Hawke\u2019s Bay Today reporter, based in Napier, with more than 40 years\u2019 experience covering news, sports and other events and issues in Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That help was most important in the last of the three races, in which Ireland finished third, fourth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59740,6726,61290,5759,26848,19552,71,13800,1976,221,8019,5158,3607,3556,111,139,69,2847,193,7798,8466,213,166412,150025,2563,61,26756,166411,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-303783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-backtoback","9":"tag-become","10":"tag-caleb","11":"tag-championships","12":"tag-defender","13":"tag-driver","14":"tag-from","15":"tag-giving","16":"tag-hawkes","17":"tag-how","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-man","20":"tag-napier","21":"tag-national","22":"tag-new-zealand","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-only","26":"tag-other","27":"tag-race","28":"tag-second","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-stockcar","31":"tag-thumbsup","32":"tag-title","33":"tag-to","34":"tag-won","35":"tag-workmate","36":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}