Two young Swedish riders will race at Mildura’s Olympic Park Speedway this coming Sunday night, testing themselves against Mildura’s top local “A” grade solo riders.

The young Swedes are, Pontus Aspgren, from the well known speedway city of Avesta and Ricky Kling, from Virserum.  Kling is currently a team mate of Cam Woodward at the Eastbourne “Eagles”, having ridden British Elite League for the last three seasons, firstly with Oxford, then Lakeside, before moving south to Eastbourne. He has also been a past member of the successful Swedish Junior Speedway team, taking a podium place in the World Under 21 Teams Championships back in 2008. Kling has established himself as a good rider in the top flight in British League as well as riding in both the Swedish and Polish Leagues over the last three years.

Aspgren, the younger of the two boys at age nineteen, is already a well travelled rider, having ridden in Swedish league for Marsarna and in Poland for Lublin during last season. Aspgren was fourth in the World 80cc Speedway Title in 2007, held that year in Poland. He will move to the strong Vastervik Club in Swedish League for this year.

Riding in the top grade this week against these Internationals will be locals, Brenton Barnfield, Tom Hedley and the Sedgmen brothers, Ryan and Justin. Justin Sedgmen shared the top points from last week’s first Olympic Park meeting and will be looking for similar form this week, while Ryan will be trying to gather points for himself as will Barnfield, who showed great class at the season opener last week. Barnfield was late to start last season due to a football injury, but has picked up plenty of good reaction skills and last week was probably the most improved rider on the track holding some good race lines in his events. Tom Hedley was just a whisker behind the top two last week and will be keen to atone for his risky manoeuvre from the final solo event.

The six “A” grade riders will fight out over heats and finish with a final to decide the winner on the night.

“B” grade solos will again be involved, with two riders from last week; grade winner, Chris Ferguson and Brock Gates, up against a couple of visiting riders in Ben Turner, who visited from Adelaide last week and John Doolan, who has not raced at Mildura before.

Again the Sidecars at Mildura go from strength to strength, with another strong field in action and also another new Sidecar team being added to the extensive list of Mildura based competitors.

Corey Gates, with passenger Adon Pearce, becomes another member of the famous Gates speedway dynasty to grace the Olympic Park track. Corey, the son of Les and Ann, has three wheeled blood coursing through his veins. Gates and Pearce have has some success riding Dirt Track sidecars, where the direction is anti-clockwise and the sidecar is on the left hand side, but have now turned to the regular speedway or the clockwise way of going, with the chair on the right hand side. Versatility will come easy to Corey, who has ridden for many years, but will break out on Olympic Park for the first time in serious competition.

A meeting under the belt to the new combinations, Clint Mayes, with Andrew Summerhayes, who finished a creditable third overall last week and Jason Bradshaw, now with Steve Behsmann, will see them better for their first outings together. Ouyen brothers, Scott and Kane Munro, along with locals, Dale Milner with Nick O’Brien, who were missing last week, will add to the mix of competition. The Holmes / Hancock combination are always up for a contest, as are Andrew O’Rourke / Jason Mayes, with Byren Gates / Mick O’Loughlin looking to solve their overheating problems of last week and score good points.

Olympic Park patrons were buoyed by the first up performance of the Cohrs brothers, Simon, on the throttle and Mark in the chair. The experience of Simon, who previously passengered for former State Champion, Jason Bradshaw, showed through, as he worked his way steadily into a good position in most events, even taking a second place over his former rider. Humour has always been a large part of the Cohrs repertoire and the large crowd at last weeks meeting enjoyed the jest shown by Cohrs to Bradshaw when the latter was well beaten into third place by the newcomers. Such a spirit of camaraderie is enjoyed amongst the fraternity.

Once again the Sidecar division is so even amongst the competitors that the programmer has chosen to run all the Sidecars together in a series of heats and a final to decide the overall winner.

Support too, has been heavy from the Quad division, which just grows exponentially, with more machines being added to the field since last week. This meeting will see a full field of eight machines contesting over a series of handicap events, which will add to patron’s enjoyment.

Again the three generations of the Mills family will have some serious say in who does what to whom, but be prepared for plenty of action, as back markers look to move through the field over their five lap journeys from their particular handicap positions.

A special feature of the program for Quads will be a “black flag” race to conclude the night, where after a set period of laps, the rider who is in last place will be eliminated lap by lap until only one rider remains. Tactics will play an important part in this event and will create much interest for fans and riders alike. The benefit of having larger entry numbers means that different types of racing can be included on the program, such as the “black flag” concept.

Classic Sidecars will again be a good feature of the program, with the many machines from the Bryan Gathercole stable being readied for action. A family commitment took the Milner boys away from Olympic Park action last week, but they will be back with a vengeance for this week’s competition.

Gates will open at the regular 5:30pm and patrons can expect action on the track from 6:00pm for Practice, followed by a Junior meeting, with Senior racing set to start from 7:30 sharp. Olympic Park has a full catering service and patrons are advised that there must be No BYO by law.

Next speedway meeting at Olympic Park will be the Leigh Adams Testimonial, to be held on WEDNESDAY 5^th January 2011 where we will see top International and the best of the Australian riders all paying tribute to the great career of Leigh Adams. Joining them will beone of the “best ever”, the great Tony Rickardsson, 6 times World Speedway Champion, who will be in Mildura to pay tribute to Leigh.

Written by Brendan Gledhill

Download the Press Release: PRE – Meeting #2 281110