Sidecar racing will return to the iconic Newcastle Showground Speedway tomorrow night (Friday March 28) for the first time in nearly four years.
The Suzuki of Newcastle Sidecar Spectacular has attracted riders from three states, including three of the four finalists from last weekend's Australian Sidecar Championship meeting in Adelaide.
Sydney star Darrin Treloar won his fifth Australian Championship last weekend in an incident-packed meeting and with his regular passenger Justin Plaisted unavailable tomorrow night Treloar will use Alan Griffiths as his passenger. Griffiths partnered Treloar to win the Australian Championship back in 1993.
Local duo Grant Bond and passenger Glen Cox finished third in the championship, their highest ever placing, and will be out to reproduce that form on their home track.
Undoubtedly the team with the most to prove tomorrow night will be Dave Bottrell and passenger Ben Pitt. This duo, who split their time between Adelaide and Townsville, were excluded from the final of the Australian Championship in controversial circumstances.
Besides Bond / Cox, there is plenty of other local interest in the line-up with the runners-up from the recent NSW Championship, Darren Caf̩ / Don Morris, veteran campaigner Mick Farrell / Wayne Farrell and youngster James Hinton / Luke Dillon.
Reigning Australian Long Track champions Chris Pym / Adam Constable of Sydney will also line up together with two teams from Tamworth, including the all girl team of Sarah and Clarissa Jones.
Queensland will be well represented in the sidecar line-up with four experienced teams headed by Wayne Munck / Yolanda Wilkin.
With the European speedway season now in full swing Australia's leading solo riders are competing there, but the solo line-up for the Newcastle Showground meeting may well include some big names of the not-too-distant future.
Not all that long out of juniors, Sam Masters, Richard Sweetman and Hugh Skidmore lead the younger brigade while the likes of Strider Horton and Tamworth's Michael Slade will fly the flag for the more experienced campaigners.
Speaking of future champions, five junior riders competing on 350cc machines will also be part of the program. Included among them are Todd Kurtz and Alex Davies who last weekend finished first and second respectively in the inaugural Australian Championship for that category of racing.
Completing the program will be the popular Flat Track Twins class with a heavy representation of Kurri Kurri riders among the Harley and Triumph mounted entrants.
Both the Sidecar Spectacular and the senior solos will be staged over rounds of heats than an A and B Final, while the junior 350cc solo and Flat Track Twins will compete over four rounds.
Since the last time the sidecars appeared at Newcastle Showground in May 2004, the venue has hosted just one meeting a year - a round of the Australian Speedway Solo Championship - but that will hopefully change from now on.
The terrible floods that hit the Hunter region in the middle of last year caused massive damage to the arena and the safety fence needed to be replaced and at the same time the track was reshaped and widened.
Promoter Graeme Boyd is not only hopeful of utilising the venue for more meetings, he is confident that the revamped track will allow for even more spectacular sidecar racing than was seen at the venue in the past.
Gates open at 4pm, practice is at 5pm, rider parade at 6.30pm and the 37-event program commences at 7pm.
