Ten years of hopes and planning will finally come to fruition when the Oakburn Park Speedway hosts the 2018 Australian Speedway Sidecar Championship this weekend.
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Over the years, the Tamworth Motorcycle Club has staged national championship meetings for seniors and juniors in dirt track and long track racing, as well as under 16 and under 21 championships for speedway solos.
But the club has long nurtured the desire to stage the “biggie” for the speedway sidecars, and they have been applying to host it for the past decade.
Finally, Motorcycling Australia – the controlling body of the sport in Australia – awarded the club the 2018 sidecar showdown.
It came as much as a relief than as a cause for celebration for club president Paul Slade.
“As a club we have believed we would be worthy hosts of this event for many years, mainly because of the high regard that competitors hold for our track,” he said.
The vast majority of the nation’s best riders have raced at the Oakburn Park track in recent years and all have left impressed.
After waiting so long to host the title showdown, much work has gone in to preparing for the two nights of racing on Friday and Saturday.
“Lighting around the track has been upgraded recently and more granite material has been added to the track surface to ensure it is in prime condition for racing,” Slade said.
And for spectators, additional seating has been installed. Seating that holds a special significance in Australian sporting history.
The seating was first part of the Olympic Stadium for Sydney 2000 before it was removed with the remodelling after the Olympic Games.
Last weekend saw the final touches put in with the fence painted and a general sprucing up of the grounds.
Another aspect of the championship that has pleased the Tamworth Club is that a revised format that the club proposed was accepted by authorities.
This will ensure the biggest roll-up of sidecars ever for the title meeting will assemble in Tamworth.
Eight riders are seeded direct to the championship decider on the Saturday night with the other eight riders decided in a qualifying meeting on the Friday night.
The big difference this year is that only eight riders have been pre-selected for the qualifying meeting, while every other rider who nominated will get to contest a series of time trials to earn one of the other eight places in the qualifying meeting.
That means that over 50 riders and passengers will be in the pits at Oakburn Park to seek championship glory.
