All Systems Go At The Devonport Raceway – Thanks To The Volunteers
Thanks to an intrepid band of volunteers, the failed conductor rail at the Devonport Raceway has been repaired and heats of the Devonport Cup scheduled for next Tuesday will go ahead as planned.
Unfortunately today's meeting had to be transferred to the Tote Racing Centre in Launceston, but it will be all systems go next week.
The conductor rail was replaced by Tasracing in May last year at a cost of approximately $100,000, but failed several weeks ago in hot weather due to a lack of expansion gaps.
The repair work involved removing every four metre length of conductor rail and cutting off six millimetres to allow for expansion in the future.
It proved to be a difficult task because the rail is only 150 millimetres from the ground and difficult to access.
NWGRC president Gary Sutton that volunteers worked six hours a day for seven days until the the work was completed.
He estimated that the NWGRC had saved Tasracing more than $20,000 by undertaking the work themselves.
Meanwhile star chaser Damek (Big Daddy Cool – World's Finest) returned to the winners circle at the Tote Racing Centre on Monday night by winning the Shaw Contracting Pty Ltd Mixed Grade 1 and 2 (515 metres) in a best of the night time of 29.55.
The champ did not have it all his own way however, with the very good Clyde's Angel (Collide – Ricky's Angel) running him to half a length in a spine-tingling finish.
The Peter Phillips owned and prepared Damek has now won 44 of 58 lifetime outings and is only $395 short of achieving a purse of $100,000.
Training honours at the LGRC meeting were with Southern mentor Keith Nicholls, who prepared three winners on the ten event card.
The Broadmarsh based trainer was successful with litter-sisters Portrait Ignites (Where's Pedro – Pretty Larkhill) and Pretty In Blue, as well as Tricky Voilet (Knocka Norris – Cleburne Lass), to provide him with one of his best night's at the sports.
Carrick trainer Les Barker repeated the dose at the meeting with the speedy bitch Topline Dee ( Hallucinate – Kyra Shiraz), which made it two in a row by winning the Kingsley Jarman Fencing Grade 5 (278 metres) by five lengths in the time of 16.09.
Former harness racing trainer-driver Brendan Pursell was also seen in the winners circle at the meeting, continuing the great run of success that he has experienced since changing codes.
Pursell was represented by the smart chaser Lika Whisper (Solve The Puzzle – Silver Legs) which made full use of the red box to take out the Mecca Restaurant Burnie Grade 3 (515 metres) in the time of 29.86.
The chaser has now won eight races for Pursell, since being transferred from New South Wales to his kennel in August.