Tomorrow night, the unmistakable scent of petrol and mud will hang in the air at Western Springs Speedway for the last time.

The floodlights will beam, the engines will roar and fans will gather for one final night of high-speed spectacle. For 96 years, Western Springs has been the heart of New Zealand speedway racing, a place where generations have stood trackside, feeling the thunder of sprint cars reverberate through their bones. However, tomorrow (March 22, 2025), the checkered flag will wave for the last time.

The farewell is bittersweet – equal parts nostalgia for the good old days and a sober realisation that the engines are falling silent not by choice, but because of circumstance. As Auckland Council pushes forward with its plans to redevelop the stadium, Western Springs Speedway’s closure signals the end of an era, not just for motorsport fans, but for Auckland’s cultural and sporting landscape. The final meet will be a celebration, a tribute, and, for many, a heartbreaking goodbye.

Almost a century of history

Western Springs Stadium has been synonymous with speedway since 1929, when the first motorcycle races took place on its oval track. The natural amphitheater in central Auckland proved a perfect venue, and by 1937, the first car events (midget car races) were drawing crowds in their thousands. Over the following decades, the stadium became one of the world’s best speedway venues, hosting legends like Ivan Mauger, Barry Briggs and Ronnie Moore on two wheels, and American stars like A.J. Foyt and Sleepy Tripp on four.

In the post-war years, Western Springs wasn’t just a sports venue – it was Auckland’s Saturday night mecca. Massive crowds packed the terraces for a night of high-octane entertainment. Speedway became woven into the city’s fabric, drawing families back year after year. Even as the decades passed and motorsport evolved, Western Springs remained a place where history was made and legacies were built.

Generations have grown up beside this track. For many families, speedway racing has been passed down like a treasured heirloom. Grandparents brought their children and those children grew up to bring their own kids decades later.

“That’s the uniqueness of it,” says Speedway manager John McCallum, speaking exclusively to The Spinoff earlier this week at his office in Newton, which houses him and a part-time contractor, just up the road from the stadium. McCallum – who grew up at Western Springs Speedway and is the former chief executive of Speedway New Zealand – has been at the helm since 2020 and been heavily involved in operations for many years prior. “I could never imagine a time when you wouldn’t go to Western Springs. It’s where families have always gathered.”

That generational devotion is what makes the closure so sad. Not just for the countless families who grew up with the roar of engines in their ears, but for all fans of speedway racing in New Zealand and across the world.

As the 2024–25 season has wound down, every event at Western Springs carried an air of finality. Fans have packed the stands in high numbers, determined to soak in every last moment. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been enough to stop the inevitable closure.

“We knew this day was coming,” says McCallum. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.”

The March 22 finale will see the return of speedway legends, past champions, and thousands of devoted fans for one last night. Drivers from across New Zealand and overseas will take to the track, eager to leave their mark on a venue that has defined speedway for nearly a century. The races will be fast, loud, and emotional, with tributes planned to honor the past and those who made Western Springs what it was.

Why the roar is falling silent

Western Springs Speedway operates within a structure of ownership and management overseen by Auckland Council through its council-controlled organisation, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited. The stadium is managed as part of the city’s larger network of event venues and in recent years, council leadership has sought to find what they consider a more commercially viable use for the site.

As part of this process, a call for expressions of interest was issued, seeking proposals for the future use of Western Springs Stadium. Notably, no submissions were made to continue speedway at the venue, including from current promoter Bruce Robertson, reinforcing the council’s stance that the sport was no longer financially sustainable in its current form. The most prominent proposal came from Auckland FC, an A-League expansion team backed by billionaire Bill Foley and his Black Knights Sports & Entertainment group, alongside local investors Ali Williams and Anna Mowbray. Their vision for the stadium, revealed earlier this week, aligns with Auckland Council’s broader push for a revitalised sports and entertainment precinct.

Despite the decision to close the speedway, efforts to save it have not stopped. The Save Our Speedway group has been vocal in its opposition, continuing to rally support in an attempt to halt the closure. A planned march to Western Springs Stadium coinciding with tonight’s final event aims to bring fans together in protest, demonstrating the strong sentiment that still exists for keeping speedway at its historic home. Organisers hope the event will send a clear message to Auckland Council that the decision should be reconsidered. However, with redevelopment plans already in motion, the likelihood of success remains unlikely.

“Operating at Western Springs has become commercially unviable due to strict event restrictions, limited race nights, and the costly burden of dismantling and reinstalling infrastructure for other events – all challenges that don’t exist at typical stadiums,” says McCallum.

The Speedway manager insists they fought hard to keep the venue running, investing heavily in legal counsel and a barrister to explore any possible avenues for extension. However, their efforts hit a dead end when Auckland Council made it clear that Western Springs was no longer a viable long-term option. “We spent a lot of money with a barrister investigating any way we could,” says John McCallum. “They asked Vicki Salmon (chair of Tātaki Auckland Unlimited) directly if there was a future for Speedway at Western Springs – the answer was simply no.”

Western Springs Speedway’s closure is not just a tale of nostalgia – it’s also a reflection of changing times and economics. Over the last decade, the Speedway has struggled to make a profit. In its heyday, the stadium attracted up to 20,000 fans on race nights, with a devoted weekly following throughout the 1980s and 90s. However, attendance has steadily dropped in recent decades, impacted by competition from other live entertainment options, changing leisure habits, and the rise of streaming and at-home entertainment. The final season has seen a resurgence in crowds, but as McCallum notes: “We needed fans to pack the stands years ago – not just when they knew it was ending.”

Auckland Council has also long debated the best use for Western Springs, citing financial losses of over $1m last season and arguing that the venue is underutilised. The decision to move the speedway to Waikaraka Park in Onehunga, with an $11m upgrade planned, is its answer to preserving the sport in Auckland – albeit in a new home.

“We fought as hard as we could,” McCallum says. “But when your landlord doesn’t want you there, it’s a battle you just can’t win.”

With Western Springs set to be redeveloped, its future likely lies in football and concerts. The newly formed Auckland FC A-League team is widely expected to make the stadium its permanent home and concert promoters are eager to use the site without the constraints of speedway’s seasonal requirements.

For the speedway community, the shift to Waikaraka Park has been met with mixed emotions. The track is smaller, the location is different, and it lacks the history of Western Springs. Some fans fear that without its iconic home, speedway will struggle to maintain its already diminished audience. Others see it as an opportunity – a chance for the sport to build a more sustainable future away from the constant threat of closure.

McCallum, for one, is hopeful. “It’s not Western Springs – it never will be. But speedway will survive. It has to.”

For now, all that’s left for speedway fans is to give Western Springs Speedway the send-off it deserves. The crowd will sit in the stands one last time, breathing in the familiar stench, knowing they are witnessing history. Speedway at Western Springs may be ending, but the memories of roaring engines, sliding sprint cars, and generations of families gathered under the lights will live on. The engines will fall silent, the grandstands will empty, and the dust will settle. But for those who have loved this place, its spirit will never fade.

I’ve been turned down once. Should I confess my love again?

Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz

Dear Hera,

Writing in with a common lesbian problem. I have a friend – let’s call her B. We have been friends for a few years now. Fairly early into our friendship, I realised that I had romantic feelings for her, and ultimately told her about those feelings. She did not reciprocate those feelings, but we stayed friends and I felt like the strength of my feelings towards her would eventually fade.

Fast-forward to today. We’re fairly close friends – she’s probably my closest friend, though I don’t know if the same is true in reverse, and our friendship is about what you would expect for two young queer women – it’s emotionally open and close, we quite frankly talk about issues of the heart – but crucially, it’s not physically close and I don’t think anyone would mistake us for a couple, and I have no reason to think that B’s feelings towards me have become romantic.

But my friendship with her has been pervaded by the thought that none of my romantic feelings have actually gone away, and that I’m only holding out hope for a relationship which will never come. Thinking reasonably about it all, I don’t think this is the case – I really value her friendship and the relationship we have now, I don’t try to orchestrate things so she will eventually confess her undying love to me or whatever.

But there is an intensity to my feelings towards B that I can’t deny, and recently I’ve been beset by the thought that, not only am I still in love with her, but that I should confess my feelings to her again. Not because I expect her to feel similarly, to be clear: I fully expect that she does not feel similarly, and even if she did, the thought of losing or escalating our friendship for a possibly fleeting romantic relationship would be terrifying.

I feel the urge to say something to B mainly because I don’t want our friendship to be built on dishonesty, and in part probably because I feel like there is something very wrong about the feelings that I have towards her. I have mainly persisted with the fiction that I’m not secretly in love with her, but the more I think about it, the more it feels impossible to deny, and the more I feel like I’m engaging in some sort of deception by not saying something.

I don’t know what the right thing to do here is, which is why I am writing this letter. Should I confess to my friend a second time, or would it be best to keep my mouth closed?

Sincerely,

Confused Lesbian

Dear Confused,

We like to pretend there’s a always strict delineation between platonic and romantic relationships, but in reality, the line isn’t always so clear. Personally, I think we have a lot more agency on this front than we like to acknowledge. We want to think that romantic love is an overwhelming force of nature that must inevitably be bowed to. That romantic love is the pinnacle of human emotion and is profoundly different than other kinds of love. 

But is romance truly superior? Can you make a cerebral decision not to fall for someone if you genuinely think a platonic relationship is a better option? Call me stupid – but I say yes. 

Obviously, there are some feelings which are too categorically romantic to ever be platonic. And there are some friendships, even those “with benefits,” which will never successfully make the leap to romance, no matter how many unexpected rainstorms you both get caught in. But there are also a lot of fringe cases – things which could easily have gone another way, had the circumstances been different. 

I think the act of decision-making is sometimes just as important as instinct. Sometimes love is completely involuntary. But it can also be an action and a choice, and sometimes, the choices we make are more profound and meaningful than the first slurry of endorphins. There are plenty of long-term couples who continue to make the choice to cultivate romance long after the honeymoon is over. And many exes who successfully make the transition to friendship without lingering awkwardness. I do think you can have a nebulous attraction to someone who is a friend, and successfully quash it.

I’m not saying this method is foolproof. If you’re catastrophically in love with someone, there’s no point pretending otherwise. But because you seem deeply unsure about what your feelings actually are, I would like to suggest that you have a lot more agency here than you think. It can be confusing when you have an extremely deep and intimate relationship with someone in a way that confounds easy categorisation. I think the natural urge is to err on the side of romance. But it’s not as simple as 90s heterosexual comedies want you to believe.

I encourage you to think deeply about what you want before spilling your guts. You say a lot of conflicting things in your letter. But I wonder how much of this is fuelled by your anxieties about being dishonest. For what it’s worth,  I don’t think being confused about the taxonomic specifics of your feelings towards someone is the same thing as deceiving them. I think that relationships and feelings towards people shift over time, and we’re allowed to work through what that means to us privately. I think we have a responsibility to be sure of what we want before we say it. Even in romantic relationships, you’re not expected to bare your entire soul. Confessing your secret heart can be romantic if you’re sure of what you want. But it sounds like you’re not even close to having a coherent answer yet. 

I think you’re getting so wound up about the scrupulosity of it all, you’re unable to separate “what would a good person do in this scenario” from “what do I  actually want to happen here.” So my goal here is to convince you to take a break from winding yourself up about the ethics of it all, and simply spend some time pondering what you actually want, without feeling like you’re committing some kind of homosexual thought crime. 

Some questions you might ask yourself:

Could you live with not saying anything, or would you be constantly tormented by regret? Could you be genuinely happy for your friend if they fell in love with someone else? Would you be happy with someone else? If you were to continue on as you have been, would that be disappointing, or can you see the silver lining? 

Considering you’ve already confessed and been turned down once, I think it’s unlikely that saying anything new will lead to romance. If your feelings are too strong to be swallowed, perhaps saying something is the right option, even if it ends your friendship. But making a conscious choice to prioritise a friendship over a relationship is not necessarily a consolation prize or an act of cowardice. Sometimes, it’s the superior outcome. 

Maybe I’m completely wrong, and it’s obvious to everyone else reading this that you’re disgustingly in love, and nothing but a full and immediate confession will do. I am deliriously sick with Covid as I write this, and my response could be an indication of impaired cognitive function. If I’m wrong, hopefully you’ll feel the wrongness of my answer, and simply ignore me. But if you do decide it’s love with a capital L, don’t confess out of a sense of moral obligation and guilt. Do it out of a sense of hopeless naivety and delusional optimism, like God intended.

Good luck either way!