Season ends with Classic Championship night at Gillman Speedway

Gillman Media 20 April 2026

The curtain dropped on the 2025/26 summer season at Gillman Speedway on Saturday night (18 April) with the annual Gillman Speedway Classic Championships meeting.

Being originally scheduled for last October but rained off and postponed to last Saturday night meant a number of changes to the line-up, and the cost, and uncertainty of supply, of fuel also didn’t help with the numbers, but nevertheless there was some close and exciting racing, particularly in the 2 valve Solo and Post Classic Sidecar classes.

The first championship decided was the 4 valve upright Solo class and this was a class that was badly affected by the change of date and fuel costs, although in saying that, two of the three riders were from Victoria. The championship was won quite easily by John Doolan, the 52-year-old dairy farmer from the rural village of Woolsthorpe, near Warrnambool. Jody McCreanor and Mathew Bodger shared the second and third places in the heats, but it was Bodger who took second in the final, with McCreanor third.

The other Solo class, the two valve bikes with riders aged 40 or over, provided some of the best races of the night between Darryl Christopher, Roy Stout and Steven Graetz. Christopher took the first heat, but Graetz won the other two heats and the final, which also carried the Jeff Fisher Perpetual Trophy, each time ahead of Stout with Christopher third and Haydn Stacey fourth, but the repetitive results don’t portray how close the racing was.

There was a third Solo class but not speedway as such. It was the Classic Flat Trackers and that saw a clear cut win in every race for Port Pirie’s Dave Footner. Behind him Graeme Eberhard, Mark Stevens and Con Twist had some wheel-to-wheel battles for the minor placings but it went a bit pear-shaped in the final. Twist came from last place into second only to then fall on the third lap, with Stevens and Eberhard also both falling trying to avoid him. Fortunately they were not injured, but Twist was excluded and Stevens awarded second place and Eberhard third.

The British Sidecar class was the class most affected by the fuel problem. The original line-up of Rory McEnroe, Dennis Nash, Darren Nash, Mark Mitchell, all on Vincents, Wayne Ware from Queensland on his twin Triumph, Moz Pridham on the BSA/JAP and George Atherton on the Norton, was a tasty one, but unfortunately they were all out except Mark Mitchell. Rob Kemp was enticed down from Broken Hill with his JAP and he gave Mitchell some close opposition at times, but ultimately Mitchell/Paul Waters took the final from Kemp/Nick Johns.

The Evolution Sidecar class was also down to only two bikes in the final after defending champions Chris Rae and Jamie Flood were forced out with an engine problem in the heats and in their absence, Wayne Lethbridge/Grantley Simounds took the title ahead of Peter Bodger/Shane Martin.

The Japanese Sidecar class had clear cut winners in Moz Pridham/Jan Pridham on the 750 Honda. The win was the fourth for Moz after winning three in a row way back in 2010-11-12. It makes him the most successful in the class after he was previously tied on three wins with George Atherton, Greg Griffiths and Steven Lewis. While they were no challenge to the Pridhams, Aaron Silvy/John Atherton Jnr, Wayne Lethbridge/Grantley Simounds, Peter Bolger/Shane Martin and Pieter Hoogland/Michael Bell had some close racing for the placings with Lethbridge/Simounds taking second, and Hoogland/Bell third in the final.

The final class was the Post Classic Sidecars, who were competing for the Brian Schultz Perpetual Trophy, and the dices between Chris Rae/Jamie Flood, Tim Bichard/Jye Siddall and Josh Pascoe/Michael Potts, rivalled that of Graetz, Stout and Christopher in the 2 valve Solos, as the best racing of the night. Rae and Flood were the defending champions and a successful defence looked on the cards when they won the first heat but Bichard and Siddall got the better of them in later races and took out the final with Rae/Flood second, Pascoe/Potts third and David Lindsay/Liam Squire fourth.