Motor sport
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BROBENAH Raceway hosted a victory by a national champion on Saturday night, but it was a win by a Leeton Motor Sports Club veteran that had the crowd on its feet.
Speedway fans from across the Riverina, Canberra and as far away as Melbourne enjoyed a wonderful night of dirt track action with production sedans, sports sedans and speedway Legend cars featured.
While all the classes produced great displays, it was Leeton's Mick Pettit who stole the show by winning his first feature race at Brobenah Raceway in 25 years.
Pettit got the night kick started with a win in the first heat of the night for Goulburn Ovens sedans with a four-second margin over second place.
Four different heat race winners showed the fans how competitive the division is when Corowa's Ross Maclean, Leeton-raised Mitch Watts and Wagga's Paul Barklem won the other heat events.
Pettit was well aware of his last feature win being 25 years ago and the crowd was soon made aware and support grew for him.
Challenged by Corowa's Dave Walton all the way, Pettit held his nerve over 12 laps to win by 0.6 of a second from Walton, Scott Callander, division champion Wayne Williams and Barklem.
Victorian Stephen Laidlaw, a two-time Australian champion in production sedans, was too good in a tight battle with Albury's Rodney Anderson, winning the Christmas Cup with Leeton's Justin Hawkins finishing in third place.
Laidlaw was the fastest competing driver all night, clocking well over 175km/h down the long Brobenah track's back straight.
Highlight class of the weekend was the Canberra-based Speedway Legend Cars Australia.
Having been displayed in the centre of Leeton on Friday and Saturday, the Yamaha-powered pocket rockets generated lots of interest before racing started and they were popular among the crowd in attendance.
In a series of demonstration events, Mick Hebditch crossed the line first every time, as well as the feature-length race.
In most events, Hebditch was five seconds ahead of everybody else at the finish line with Rick Christy, Bryan Neal and Paul Opray challenging. Hebditch finished ahead of Christy and Neal at the end of the night.
In the Victorian Sports Sedans Stampede, Rhys Collins from Mount Beauty Victoria was the pre-event favourite.
However, after a huge win in the first heat, where he was almost two seconds a lap quicker then the rest of the field, he found himself penalised two positions in the second heat due to rough passing.
He finished second and then out raced the field in the last heat.
Collins went on in the final and was too good for Wagga racer Charlie Ball and Victorian James Powell.
In the final class of the night, Warrick Howie won all four heats in the standard saloon division with Wangaratta's Stuart Densem in second place ahead of Kim Eames filling out the minor places.