Rejoice — speedway season is here

While spring time for many means daffodils, lambs bouncing around and longer days in the sun, for some it means dust in your hot chips, roaring V8 engines and supporting your favourite drivers at the local speedway track.

This weekend Aotea Electric Riverside Speedway will kickstart the 2023/24 Speedway season in the deep south.

Saturday will see the club host its opening meeting with double club points on offer across all of the grades racing, a good chance for drivers to bag some very valuable points to try to snare the overall points trophy at the end of the season.

One grade that has had a huge influx of new drivers for the coming season is the Youth Saloon class, a great feeder grade for these young drivers to progress to the senior ranks once they turn 16.

Twelve new drivers have entered the grade for the season, possibly one of the biggest increases in drivers in one grade the club has ever seen.

Once these drivers get up to speed after a few meetings, it will create some great racing across the field.

Some of the new drivers have some form of motorsport experience with the likes of Meah Sommerville, an experienced Youth Mini Stock driver, Ryder Harris, a talented young Moto X rider and Eli Bartley, who is no stranger to speedway, always a top performer on a solo bike at Oreti Park.

This season will also represent life member Steve Dryden's 50th year of speedway racing, a milestone worth celebrating.

Dryden has raced across a number of grades over his career, but has cemented himself as one of the best streetstock drivers in New Zealand, and is certainly showing no signs at all of slowing down any time soon.

The club has a busy season ahead with the popular Derby Teams and Demolition Derby, the return of the Southern Sprintcar Series for two events, the final of the Brian FM Saloon Series, the Debbie The Webster Super Saloon Cup, as well as many memorial meetings and Southland Championships to be contested across the calendar.

The club’s showcase meeting will be the ILT Fireworks Extravaganza on December 28.

Racing this Saturday kicks off at 2pm.

By Daryl Shuttleworth