MEDIA RELEASES KAIKOHE SPEEDWAY

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT at Kaikohe Speedway on Saturday night as Emily Carne does her human torch routine.

Meet Emily 'Carnage' Carne, the human cannonball. Apart from being shot out of a cannon, the 25 year-old British lass also gets used as a battering ram, dragged across the tarmac on her back at high speed and is often set alight.

That's entertainment for Carne who has been part of the stunt team in Scott May's Daredevil Stunt Show - as seen at the Kaikohe Speedway on Saturday night - for the past six years.

"It's really what I intended to do," Carne deadpanned while noting the announcement to join the stunt show was made, "much to my mum's horror".

Three years ago, Scott May told her he was looking for someone to take over from the departing resident cannon-baller [no pun intended]. The easy-going British lass only had to put her hand up to score the gig. Her job is to climb up the cannon barrel and load herself into a bucket which is lowered down a 4m shaft and held in place by six high-tensile bungee-style cords. These are then released to fire the human cannonball upwards and out of the barrel into the sky to land in a safety net 20 yards away.

Carne has been shot out the cannon more times than she can remember; she stopped counting after the 200th firing. She said it was a bigger buzz than skydiving of bungee jumping and when asked to describe the feeling, was remarkably eloquent: "It's Mental!" she laughed.

(Carne stepped aside to allow a fellow stunt artist to enjoy being the human cannonball at Kaikohe on Saturday night.)

Then there were the motorcycle tricks, car stunt work (such as cars being driven around the track on two wheels as first seen on the silver screen in one of the early James Bond movies), mayhem causing clowns and more wheelies by all manner of vehicles.

Main man Scott May proved a dab hand at driving a Ford Escort on two wheels and also put on a high speed parallel parking demonstration amongst a multitude of other stunts. May, who has run the show in the UK for the past 15 years, admitted to being a little disappointed with the turnout in Northland so far. It's not surprising considering the high overheads such a production is likely to carry.

Kaikohe was only the second time the show has been seen outside its homeland (it was in Whangarei on Friday night and Dargaville on Sunday night). What must be a large amount of gear was shipped to New Zealand - taking five weeks to cross to the other side of the world - and will be seen at 36 different venues around the country before returning home.

The main attractions are the pyrotechnics displays - most including the abovementioned Carne - and also a stunt where a car is launched off a ramp into crash headlong into another car positioned upright on its grille.

However, the undisputed heavyweight stars of the show were the monster trucks. They brought a roar of approval from the Kaikohe crowd - estimated at close to 1000 - as they drove over a pile of old cars 'parked' in the middle of the speedway.

Crash, smash, destroy, enjoy: all-in-all, a vulgar, unnecessary and totally pointless display of power. In other words, Mental!

In other motor sport news, the Kaikohe Speedway is back racing on January 10. The next major event coming up for Far North rev-heads is the major two day New Year's Meet at Taipa Speedway from January 2-3 (preview forthcoming).