After heavy rain during the week, Speedway Manager David Parker and a small band of volunteers worked on the water-logged track until almost midnight Friday night and was back at 4am the next morning and were rewarded for their efforts with a good track and fine weather for the first winter meeting on Saturday afternoon.

The 76 event programme started just after noon and finished five hours later and a well-run, swift moving show that had a good smattering of wheel-to-wheel races to keep the enthusiastic crowd entertained.

The meeting started with the 250cc Under 16 Solo class and the opening race was won by Mildura’s Cooper Riordan, who was very unfortunate not to go through the card unbeaten. Riordan won all four of his heats, and the final — only for it to be announced they had only done three laps in the final. And you guessed it – he got beaten in the restaged final. He was initially beaten from the start by Dakota Ballantyne, and then Mitchell Grech went under both with an aggressive and impressive move through turn two to take the lead.

Ballantyne regained the lead and won easily as Riordan was unable to pass Grech until the end of lap three. After looking the winner at one stage, Grech finished four after Western Australian Declan Knowles also passed Grech on the last lap. Knowles early beat Jaimon Lidsey, Jack Sylvia and Matthew Marson in the semi-final.

The 500cc Solos saw Jack Fallon and Brodie Waters share the honours in the heats with 11 points each, both only dropping a point to each other, but Seth Hickey was the surprise winner in the final after Fallon and Waters both made mistakes. Fallon was the first to go, falling on the second lap while running second to Waters. In the rerun without Fallon,

Waters was well in front but hit the fence in turn four on lap three. The heavy dirt near the fence pulled him into the fence and then he rode along the fence pulling of some sponsor banners. Somehow he managed to stay on the bike, although he almost came to a stop and was passed by Hickey. Once he had regained control he set after Hickey but was dragging a sponsor banner which was hooked onto the right hand side footrest, and Hickey won comfortably from Waters, Gary Fischer and newcomer Matthew Flay.

The feature Sidecar class was the Group 1 Sidecars and that class saw an easy win for former World Champions Mick Headland/Jesse Headland. The Headlands dropped 3 points in the heats through a retirement (while leading) but were never challenged throughout the day. The final was an anti-climax after Damien Niesche/Mitchell Spear lifted on the way to the first turn and the other two riders, Chris Dess/Emily Seymour and Tim Bichard/Dale Knights, slowed expecting a restart which never eventuated.

That left Headland, Niesche and Dess well spread out, while Bichard actually went straight to the infield where he collapsed and required medical treatment. It was later revealed he had dislocated his knee when his foot was caught in Dess’ fairing in the first bend melee, and then to compound matters when he collapsed the bike landed on his little finger and broke it. Bichard had earlier beaten Victorians Mark Radford/Chris Walker in one of the closest races of the day to win the semi-final.

The Group 2 Sidecars produced some close racing between all four riders but it was second year rider Dean Hobbs/Andy Westover who was the clear star, finishing with three wins after a first race retirement.

There was also four classes of Classic Sidecars on the programme, which some close races mixed with quite a few engine failures.

The most successful of the Classic riders was Dale Milner/Nick O’Brien who was unbeaten in both the British/European/American class, and the Japanese class. Despite his unbeaten run in the Japanese class it was one of the closest classes of the day with Milner, Rodney Gebhart/Jackson McLean, Adon Pearce/Jason Whitfield and Darcy Risstrom/Jesse Headland all riding well.

Milner also figured prominently in the Evolution class but had to play second-fiddle to Paul Donnelly/Jake Roberts in all four heats.

The Post Classic class was disappointing with mechanical problems seeing four of the five bikes fail to front for the last race. Clinton Crabb/Matt Morgan, who were one of the teams to drop out, had previously won their first three starts.

The other class of racing was Dirt Track/MX Solo class which was dominated by Logan Coombe, Luke Mitchell and Kane Turner. Broken Hill’s Coombe was unbeaten in the heats while Mitchell and Turner both dropped just one point each to Coombe, and they finished in that order in the 10 lap final.

The star rider of the 125cc Junior Solo races was Brayden McGuinness who was unbeaten in the Group 1 races. The junior Solos look set for their best season for quite some years with increased numbers and a good crop of novice riders.

The next track action at Gillman will be the regular monthly practice morning on Sunday, 3 August, followed by the second winter meeting on Saturday afternoon, 13 September.