BRITISH SPEEDWAY JANUARY 3, 2024

(SPEEDWAY 1)

AUTY RETIRES

JOSH Auty has announced his retirement from racing at the age of 33.
Auty, who was British Under-15 Champion back in 2004-05, has taken the decision following several injury setbacks including a badly broken leg at Birmingham nearly two years ago.

He was most associated with Scunthorpe at Championship level, where they took the Premier League title in 2012, and he also won that league’s Pairs event with Ricky Ashworth for Sheffield in 2010 along with the top-flight league title with Coventry in the same year.

Auty also appeared at Cardiff as a track reserve in the 2013 British Grand Prix, scoring one point from one ride.
He said: “I have been thinking over the last six months should I return, but I feel the time is right to call time on my career.
“I would have liked to go out on a high but my last competitive race was in April 2022 in which I badly broke my leg, which was rather unfortunate.

“I just want to say thank you to my family, sponsors and supporters who have been with me through the highs and lows throughout my time in speedway.
“I’m looking forward to a new challenge in my life, and once again thank you for your support.”
 
(SPEEDWAY 2)

EDINBURGH have signed Australian star Justin Sedgmen for a third spell with the club.
Sedgmen was a member of the multiple trophy-winning Monarchs teams of 2014-15 and also rode at Armadale in 2019, before recently appearing in the Cab Direct Championship for Birmingham.

He said: “I wanted to eliminate some travelling and come back to Edinburgh as I enjoy it and generally always score well at Armadale. If you look at my past record and even last year, I had some good scores there.
“I wanted to come back as I really feel I can get dialled into Armadale quickly again and make it a dominant home track for me. I didn’t really have that at Birmingham as the away riders seemed to ride it as well as the home guys, so it was difficult to get the big points.

“Your home track should be where you score the most of your points and make the most of your money but that wasn’t the case last year, my away average was higher than at home so if I can become dominant at Armadale and score as I was away then my average will go up, so it made lot of sense to come back.”

(SPEEDWAY 3)

KYLE Newman’s Testimonial meeting at Poole has been brought forward by one week and will become the opening meeting of the British Speedway season.
The event will now take place at Wimborne Road on Wednesday March 13 as 32-year-old Newman celebrates a career which has seen him race for his local club in a total of six seasons over three different spells.
He rode for the Pirates last year but has joined rivals Plymouth in the Cab Direct Championship for the 2024 campaign.