The 2024 Australian Junior Track Championship will be held for the fifth time on August 10-11, with the Forbes Auto Sports Club in NSW hosting the nation’s emerging dirt stars across a packed two-day schedule.
Last year’s event at the Barleigh Ranch Raceway was one for the ages with spectacular racing and a catalogue of upsets where some riders held their nerve and others skipped a beat under the intense pressure. Amazingly, in the eight classes that were decided by a final, only twice did the top point-scorer from heats go on to win the decider.
With a huge number of riders who helped shape such a memorable 2023 event now on their way to Forbes for another bite at the junior track cherry, more blockbuster battles are set to unfold across the 12 championship classes.
The 13-U16 150cc 2T (two-stroke) and 13-U16 250cc 4T (four-stroke) classes will again be fiercely contested, with Riley Nauta the defending champion in the former while the latter is a clean slate affair with 2023 No. 1 Cameron Dunker now a senior pilot.
Nauta has multiple threats in the 150cc 2T class, including recently crowned No. 2 in the SGP3 (U16) world speedway class, Beau Bailey, as well as race-hardened trio Sam Drane, Jed Fyffe and Jake Paige who have recently returned home from intense campaigns at the 2024 AMA Flat Track Grand Championship in Illinois.
The 250cc 4T class has a massive championship-leading 33 entries, which includes the abovementioned riders plus more grunt from the likes of Bodie Paige, Neiko Donovan and Lenny Duggan.
All riders will compete over four rounds in both classes, where the smoothest passage to the final will be by finishing inside the top 10 point-scorers. The next 12 in the heats then head to the sudden-death repechage where the first two will progress to the final.
The Australian Junior Track Championship was inaugurated in 2017, and among the riders to taste victory at the maiden event included a quartet that is now making huge inroads in other frontiers: current AMA flat track riders Tom Drane and Max Whale, Moto2 grand prix rider Senna Agius, and 2023 Australian supersport champion and now impressive superbike rookie Cameron Dunker.
The track’s surface is rolled granite, and racing will be held in an anti-clockwise direction. Spectators are welcome (entry is $10 per car), and the on-track action will start just after 9:30 am on Saturday and 10:00 am on Sunday. The precinct is located at 205 Hoopers Road, Forbes.
The other championship classes are:
12-U16 85cc 2T/150cc 4T (Nauta is also the defending champion);
13-U16 125cc 2T/250cc 4T girls (Romee Flewell-Smith);
7-U12 85cc 4T modified;
7-U9 50cc Auto;
7-U9 65cc 2T (Cohen McCosker);
9-U13 65cc 2T;
9-U13 85cc 2T/150cc 4T;
7-U9 ATV 90cc 2T/110cc 4T;
9-U13 ATV 90cc 2T/125cc 4T; and
12-U16 ATV 200cc 2T/250cc 4T.
There will also be support events for 7-U9 110cc 4T and 13-U16 150cc 2T/250cc 4T, while a non-competitive demonstration class for 50cc riders will complete the program for the 116 riders in attendance.
