It is time to get back to Speedway

The football finals are done and dusted which can only mean one thing . . . it is time to get back to Speedway.

And in Adelaide that means to the ‘Ray White Gawler’ Gillman Speedway, home of the 2027 Australian Speedway Grand Prix.

Before we get to the World Championship decider in October, there is a big season of 13 meetings, including multiple Australian Championships and international events in the next seven months.

The opening summer season meeting will be on October 24, but before that we have the annual Gillman Speedway Classic Championships meeting on October 17. The Classic meeting usually doubles as a chance to honour a rider of the past, but this season the meeting will mark the 50th Anniversary of Australia’s first win the Speedway World Team Cup, at White City in London in 1976, and all three surviving members of that team – John Boulger, Phil Crump and Phil Herne – have confirmed they will be attending.

A week later it is straight into championship action with the Gillman Speedway Solo and Sidecar track championships the feature events. In the corresponding meeting last season Mildura-based Dayle Wood won the Solo title, while Trent Headland/Jaxon Rayner won their first Gillman Sidecar title ahead of Justin Plaisted/Brian Anthony after Plaisted/Anthony had been unbeaten in the heats.

Meeting two, on November 7 will be a standard meeting of Solos, Sidecars, Flat track Solos and Juniors, will the Solos having a last chance to prepare for the State Championships at meeting three on November 21.

The 500cc SA Solo Championship this season is being sponsored by former sidecar champion David Adams. Adams has been one of Gillman’s longest sponsors with his business, Paintmaster SA. He’s now sold the business but is continuing on as a Gillman sponsor under his own name. It is too early to know the line-up for the championship but there is a good chance English riders William Cairns and Luke Harrison, two of the members of Great Britain’s team which took the bronze medal in the European Under-19 Pairs Final at Pocking in Germany last Saturday (26 September), will be nominating. Whatever the line-up there is likely to be a new champion as the current champion is American Luke Becker and there is no indication, at this stage, that he’ll be available to defend the title. The support programme will include the Under 16 250cc SA Solo Championship.

Meeting four on 12 December will be the last meeting before Christmas and the first of a run of three national and international solo meetings presented by long-time sponsor CBS Bins.

The first, on December 12, is the Australian Under 21 500cc Championship, and the Under 16 250cc Championship. This will be the first time since 2022 that the events have been held at Gillman. Defending Under 21 champion Beau Bailey, who won last year at just 16, and is the youngest rider to win the title, is the first rider to nominate for this year’s event, while last season’s placegetters, James Pearson and Tate Zischke, will both be eligible to ride despite turning 21 before the event as the rules state “a person’s age on the 1st of January will determine their age for competition purposes for that calendar year”. English riders William Cairns and Luke Harrison will also qualify if overseas entries are accepted. The defending champion in the 250cc class is Cooper Antone who, since last year’s title, has finished fourth in the final of the FIM Speedway Youth World Championship (SGP3) in Wrocław, Poland.

The first meeting after Christmas will be the FIM Oceania Solo Championship on Sunday night, December 27. This is a very important event in terms of the World Championship (Speedway Grand Prix) as the highest placed Australian rider (who is not first or second in the Australian Championship) goes forward to the European Qualifying rounds.

The Gillman round of the Australian Championship will be on Monday, January 4 and that will be the last of the major Solo meetings for the season before a string of Sidecar meetings starting with the Jim Irwin Cup on January 23, followed by the Bowes Family Cup on February 6 and then the Safe Fire Electrical South Australian Championship on February 20.

The fierceness of the Sidecar racing at Gillman is demonstrated by the number of different winners in last season’s Sidecar trophy events. Townsville’s Tyler Moon and Adam Lovell made the over 2500 kilometre trip from Townsville to Gillman a worthwhile one when they outshone the local stars to win the Jim Irwin Sidecar Cup; Mildura’s Byren Gates and Adelaide passenger Damian Egan won the Bowes Family Cup; and young guns Nate Headland and Harry Hearne shocked their more experienced rivals by taking the Safe Fire Electrical SA Championship.

Missing out in all these meetings were the reigning, and four-time, Australian Champions Mark Plaisted and Ben Pitt but they made amends with victory in the Bob White Cup, and that is meeting ten, on March 6, this season.

Meeting 12, on April 3, will be another trophy event, The Marker Brother’s Cup, but either side of that will the major Sidecar events on the Australian Speedway calendar, the FIM Oceania Championship and the Australian Championship, both presented by Ray White Gawler.

The FIM Oceania Championship had yet another different winner last season with Trent Headland and Jaxon Rayner leading all the way from the SA Champions Nate Headland and Harry Hearne. This year’s event will be on Saturday, March 27, which means the Marker Brother’s Cup on April 3 will be the last chance of any track action for the teams before the Australian Championship meetings on Friday night April 23 (Qualifying) and Saturday night April 24 (Championship Final).

The defending champions are Townsville’s Tyler Moon and Adam Lovell and it is thought they will have a bike based in Adelaide and fly down for several of the major events, while the other finalists for last two seasons, Mark Plaisted/Ben Pitt, Trent Headland/Jaxon Rayner and Justin Plaisted/Brian Anthony would be expected to ride in most of the main meetings to best the best prepared they can be for a coveted home state national championship win. Mark Plaisted and Ben Pitt achieved that the last time the championship was held at Gillman, in 2022, while Trent Headland and then passenger Darryl Whetstone won the previous staging at Gillman in 2017.

All the season’s dates, and feature events, can be found on the Events tab on the Gillman website, and if any changes occur the page is updated straight away.