Winged sprint car
Dirt track racing
is a type of
auto racing
performed on clay or dirt surfaced oval tracks in
Australia
. The seasons tend to be from September to April.
[1]
There are a large number of tracks available Australia wide, with some of the most popular ones being
Perth Motorplex
,
Bunbury Speedway
,
Speedway City
, Premier Speedway Warrnambool (Sungold Stadium) and Sydney Speedway (trading as Valvoline Raceway). The richest and best known Speedway series in Australia is the
World Series Sprintcars
. The series was conceived by
Adelaide
based sedan driver and promoter John Hughes in 1986 as an Australian version of the famous
World of Outlaws
(WoO) series run in the United States since 1978. The most recent season was the
2014?15 World Series Sprintcars season
.
There is also a single meeting
Australian Sprintcar Championship
which is run over 12 rounds during the Australian Speedway season (as of 2013?14). The Australian Sprintcar Championship has been contested every year since 1963. Only open to Australian Sprint Car drivers, the Championship is for winged 410ci cars. It is contested at a different track each season, on a state-by-state rotational basis. The 2015 Championship was held at
Western Australia
's
Bunbury Speedway
. The 2016 title will be held at Victoria's Premier Speedway.
[2]
The most successful driver of the Championship's history is Garry Rush with 10 wins. Another popular annual event is the
Australian Super Sedan Championship
.
Chris Holder - Australian speedway rider and captain of the Australian team
The composition of the dirt on tracks has an effect on the amount of grip available. Tracks can be composed of any of the following materials; clay, dirt, sand, Dolomite, crushed granite and crusher dust. Some tracks are also banked or semi-banked, although most are flat. The Ultimate Sprintcar Championship (USC) recently announced a new television show which will be broadcast on
7mate
, which is the most comprehensive free-to-air deal in the history of a few premier Sprintcar venues. It will run from early November 2015 until the end of April 2016. The new program will be known as "Ultimate Sprintcar".
[3]
Motorcycle Speedway returns to Australia
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]
Despite Australia being the birthplace of
motorcycle speedway
in 1923, and producing two World Champions since 2002 in
Jason Crump
(
2004
,
2006
and
2009
) and
Chris Holder
(
2012
), as well as dual
Under-21 World Champion
Darcy Ward
(
2009
,
2010
), the Speedway Grand Prix of Australia has not returned to the
Speedway Grand Prix
calendar as of
2014
.
This is set to change from 2015 with
Docklands Stadium
in
Melbourne
, a 53,359 seat stadium with a
retractable roof
and movable seating, signing a 5-year deal to host the event.
[4]
Eithad is mostly used by the
Australian Football League
so a temporary track (early estimates put it at approximately 350 metres (380 yards) long) will need to be installed for the 2015 event scheduled to be held on 24 October (after the end of the
2015 AFL season
). The Grand Prix is set to be the 12th and final round of the
2015 Speedway Grand Prix
series. Triple World Champion
Jason Crump
and ten time
Australian Champion
Leigh Adams
will serve as Australian SGP ambassadors in 2015. The
Australia national speedway team
are one of the major teams in international motorcycle speedway with the country regarded as the birthplace of the sport in the 1920s. The current team is managed by former rider
Mark Lemon
, (who also managers the
Australia national under-21 speedway team
) and captained by
2012 World Champion
Chris Holder
. Australia finished 3rd in the
2014 Speedway World Cup Final
on 2 August in
Poland
.
Of the 15 permanent riders of the SGP, three of them are Australian;
Popular events
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Some of the more notable and popular dirt track races include:
Types of classes
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There are several types of classes in Australian speedway including:
[5]
[
inappropriate external link?
]
Venues
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New South Wales
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Northern Territory
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Queensland
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South Australia
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Victoria
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Western Australia
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References
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External links
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