Junior Action in 2008?
(Posted 02/02/08)

One of the issues that was raised with Stewart Dickson at the STARs event last night was the situation regarding competitive racing for junior riders.

Stewart brought in Colin Mackie to answer the question.

Colin was responsible for the Academy League side last season and outlined the major headaches he had in even getting teams to travel to Ashfield - a few times when a team was scheduled to ride he would get a call a day or two beforehand saying that they did not have riders willing to travel or those who were willing had problems with finance or transport.

This season the Academy League is basically down the swanee but Colin has been in touch already with Northern Clubs to try and arrange competitive action for the juniors hopefully as the second half to some of the meetings this season. He will also be asking other clubs on an ad hoc basis if they have youngsters willing to travel up with the main team for second half competition and a chance of experience on a different track as well as trying to get away challenges for the Glasgow lads.

It is sad that there is no organised schedule or help for the youngsters and Colin has to be applauded for all the hard work he continues to do to try and get the juniors some competitive action. Hopefully as many fans as possible will stay behind and support the youngsters in any meetings he is able to arrange.

Stewart also highlighted the problems of getting physical track time for the kids with the housing at both Armadale and Ashfield making it almost impossible to run training days as the residents of the new housing would almost certainly use it to object to any sort of speedway at the stadium and possibly jeopardise the planning permission the clubs currently have. It was acknowledged that a separate training track in co-operation with Edinburgh would be a good idea but venues do not seem to be available.