DAD AND THE LAD

By Pete McNae

The tough bit about racing on a shoestring budget is that, occasionally, the shoestring snaps.

That's been the case this week for the two TQ team of Mark and Kynan Bezett as they prepared to welcome in a slightly surprising start to the new season at Nelson's Milestone Homes Top of the South Speedway at 6pm on Saturday. Surprising because, for the past three months, it's been “Delta this” and “alert levels that” and “vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate”. Few foresaw a significant shift in rules last week that would permit scanned and spaced pods of patrons to enter the Richmond raceway.

The Sgetti Racing team of Mark, 45, and teenaged son Kynan were determined to be ready for any eventuality, though. Both cars were out for Nelson's practices and lapping happily until the cockpit in Kynan's car filled with smoke, and he shut down the motor and pulled infield as soon as he could.

“Smoke in the cockpit is never good,” Kynan said.

“More parts offered to the gods of speed,” Mark added.

One piston was kaput, causing collateral damage along the way. The Bezetts are on a tight budget and will cannibalise the shed supply to get Kynan's car running again, although a start in this weekend's Trackman Trophy meeting, presented by A+ Builders, would be pushing it. There's simply not enough time nor money to rush the repairs.

Kynan is taking it the hardest. The Nayland College student is in his second season in the class, having grown up in the pits with his parents; Mark and Angela, and younger sister Nareise. Last summer, he decided to get involved despite not having travelled the ministock, motocross or karting pathway. The family found a well-built older car and sent him out there with the high-vis rookie flag on the rollcage.

“Dad set me up to stick on the pole line. It was about halfway through the season before I was confident enough to try to race instead of just trying to keep out of everyone's way,” he said. “Instead of running round the inside and starting off the back, I got onto the grid and, as we ironed out some stuff in the engine, I really started to enjoy it.”

There was a heavy shunt into the turn 2 wall when Bezett appeared to be heading to the stuffed spud stand, but the rookie still felt he was making progress. Off-season tweaks to the car had him confident he could run with the pack this season, but the engine fluff is a setback.

“I was pushing the car, trying to catch Dad who started half a corner ahead of me and then there were popping noises. I got off the track, but there's some damage in there.”

The repair job falls to Mark who is a self-taught TQ racer since buying his one and only car – a chassis built in 1995 – more than a decade ago. When he got the car, he also bought a book on rebuilding an air-cooled Suzuki and that's been his shed bible over the years.

The car, like Kynan's, has good history – but a lot of it. It's unlikely there are many older still running in an open field but, for Bezett, that's where the fun lies.

“Am I going to win? Unlikely. Do I care? Not at all.”

For Sgetti Motorsport, it's a good corner, then a good lap, then a series of good laps and see where the cards fall. Mark admits that a close tussle further back in the pack is still a rush, even if the frontrunners are the best part of a lap ahead.

His car is old but well maintained, and it runs on cast-off tyres from his classmates. The air-cooled cars (they don't run self-starters and need a push before each race) are also becoming dinosaurs as water-cooled technology progresses.

“My car doesn't know how old it is,” Bezett said. “When it was new, it cleaned up everything at Western Springs, and it keeps me interested seeing what I can squeeze out of it now.”

Bezett took last season away from the grid for two reasons. He wanted to be Kynan's crew chief and give the first-time racer his full attention as he found his way into the sport. But the 99N chassis also failed a head-height requirement under new rules. Bezett had always had 50mm between helmet and cage, suddenly he needed 100mm. You can't cut and sleeve TQ bars to make the top line any higher, nor could he drop the seat any lower, so it was an 18-month project to shift the brakes and driveline to get the clearance.

“If I'm honest, that sort of thing wakes me up now ... finding a challenge and working your way through it instead of throwing some money at it to make it go away,” he said. “Don't get me wrong, if I had money, some of these things would be way easier, but it's about looking at it, taking it apart, seeing what is in the shed and making it work.”

You get the feeling that even Bezett's oily rag is borrowed and should have been recycled years ago.

Both cars were humming at practice, though. That's the product of years of watching, learning and asking questions of the likes of Cliff and Morgan Frost. Bezett moved north from Dunedin and family members Neil and Shane Henderson were running radical homebuilt TQs back then. Bezett knew which class he wanted to enter when he moved from spectator and pit fiddler to race car driver.

When he bought the car at Angela's urging, TQs in Nelson were at a low ebb, but there has been a spike in growth from the ministock ranks and others who came from outside the sport after realising it is possible to lap Nelson at a rough cost of a thousand dollars per second of lap time, if you shop smart.

“It's a cheap way to go fast, and we fall over often enough that the crowd have slowly come across to us – it's all about entertainment and riding a wheel is all part of that.”

But win, lose, fail or fall over, the Bezetts are in speedway as a family. Angela has taken on a role within the class, Kynan has graduated from pit helper to racer and Nareise is hoping to have a go soon, too.

“I'm not quite ready to hand it over, and I don't know if I could ever bring myself to sell this car – the Bank of Bezett might just have to stay open for a while longer.”

• Mark and Kynan Bezett have help from Sunrise Cleaning Services, Cliff Frost and Morgan Frost and Porter Racing while those secondhand tyres have come from the likes of Jayden Corkill and Dylan Bensemann.

• Classes programmed for Saturday's 6pm meeting, presented by A+ Builders, include stockcars, streetstocks, production saloons, youth ministocks, quarter midgets, sidecars and three-quarter midgets.  

• As Saturday's meeting will be run under Covid alert level 2 rules, scanning and spacing will be required and masks are advisable, especially to use facilities such as food outlets and toilets. The Nelson Speedway Association website and Facebook page have more detailed requirements.

• Free Covid-19 vaccinations are being administered beneath the corporate box from 4pm as part of the national roll-out. Those getting a vaccination will receive a free ticket to the speedway. Patrons getting second jabs will need their Covid-19 vaccination card.

Photos: Rebecca Connor Maling, BM Photography

Article added: Thursday 14 October 2021