Long Track motorcycle racing will return to South Australia in style on Saturday, 24 April, with the staging of the South Australian Long Track Championships at the Anderson Raceway, on the Lincoln Highway at Whyalla.
For Speedway fans, the 500cc Long Track Slider Class and the 1100cc Long Track Sidecar class, are regarded as the premier classes and both boast several star riders.
Three of the finalists from this season's Australian Long Track Championship will compete in the Solo Slider class — Strider Horton (Newcastle), Jason Stewart (Mildura) and Mark Murphy (Newcastle).
Horton, Stewart and Murphy were amongst the favourites for the 2010 Australian Championship and Horton, the current NSW Champion, was unbeaten in his heats and led the final until the last corner when he was passed and beaten on the run to the line by teenage speedway star Todd Kurtz who is now riding in England.
Sunraysia’s Jason Stewart, like Horton, is a long track specialist, and is expected to be Horton's biggest challenger, along with Murphy, Nathan Hedley (Seaford) and Sam Martin (Tailem Bend).
Stewart has competed in numerous Australian Long Track titles and been in winning positions in the past, but for various reasons a much coveted title has eluded him. He’s also qualified for several Australian Speedway Championships but says long track is his real passion due to the higher speeds.
Stewart, Murphy and Martin will also compete in the 500cc Speedway Class where they will come up against former international rider, Nigel Sadler. Martin has also ridden overseas and is the current Gillman Speedway (Adelaide) track champion.
The feature event is likely to be the 1100cc Long Track Sidecar class which includes three of the current top five Speedway riders in Australia, including the current World Champion, Mick Headland from Murray Bridge.
Headland missed most of the current season after being injured in New Zealand, but made a successful return to racing at Easter time when he finished fourth in the Australian Championship at Newcastle.
The other star riders competing at Whyalla, Broken Hill's Rick Howse and Adelaide's Mark Plaisted, finished second and fifth respectively in the championship.
In other events, Mildura's Rowan Tegart (who qualified for the Australian Championship final) and Ben Brooks, and veteran Port Pirie star David Footner, are the favourites in the MX Open Class, and the Pro Open Class.
The other Solo class is the Pro Lites, featuring Sadler, Brooks (who was an Australian Championship finalist in this class), Tegart, Dale Knights (Adelaide) and Lewis Gunn (Mildura).
There will also be events for the Unlimited Quads and the Classic Japanese engine Sidecars, and there will be demonstrations by the ever-popular British Vincent powered Sidecars, with two former Australian Championship-winning bikes in action.
Still on the Vincent theme, the current Australian National Speed record holder in the Modified Vintage Gas 1350cc class, Malcolm Hewett, will also do some demonstration runs on his record-holding 1950 Vincent Rapide motorcycle.
All racing classes will have 3 rounds of three lap races, while the 1100cc Sidecars, Solo Sliders and Solo Speedway class will also have a 4 lap final for the six highest point scorers in the heats.
Gates will open at 8 a.m. and there will be practice from 10 a.m. with the main programme starting at 12.30 p.m. after the opening by the Mayor of Whyalla, and finishing around 5.30 p.m., with the presentation of awards in the public area adjacent to the pits at about 6 p.m.
Admission will be Adults $20, pensioners and children aged 6 to 16 $10, children under six (accompanying an adult) free, family $50 (2 adults and up to three children), and souvenir programmes will be $5.
The venture to bring motorcycle track racing back to the mid-north after a lapse of about ten years is the brain-child of former rider Neil Burston and Whyalla Super Sedan driver Geoff Brown, and is being well supported by local sponsors including the Ocean Eyre Housing Development and Peter Callis First National Real Estate, and Peter Kittle Toyota.
Long track racing was the first form of speedway-style racing with most of the motorcycle track racing in the early 1900s on horse-racing tracks before small track racing started in the 1920s, and it enjoyed a strong following in South Australia, particularly in the north of the state where the annual Easter meeting on the half mile track at Port Pirie was the best known meeting in Australia.
Burston and Brown are now hoping to restore the discipline to its former popularity, and if Saturday's meeting is well supported it is likely to become an annual event on the Anzac Day Long Weekend.
For further information contact the promoters on 0408 315 703 (Neil Burston), 0428 897 981 (Geoff Brown), or by e-mail: northerntrackpromotions@westnet.com.au
Last Modified on 19/04/2010 12:53