GILLMAN SPEEDWAY TRAGEDY

Gillman Speedway’s opening summer season meeting on Saturday night (November 9) was marred with the death of Adelaide Flat Track Solo rider Troy Knights after an accident in the semi-final of the Gillman Flat Track Championship.

The accident occurred on the opening lap of the race when Troy was unable to miss a fallen rider and was thrown onto the track. It wasn’t a high-speed accident and almost every time similar accidents occur they don’t result in any injuries, but tragically the way Troy landed resulted in a severe neck injury, then a heart attack, and he passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Motorcycle Speedway is very much club based these days and Troy was an enthusiastic rider who was always one of the first to nominate when the Flat Trackers were on the programme, so his loss will be heavily felt by members of the Speedway Riders Association of SA, and other clubs he was a member of through his dirt track racing for a number of years.

A report of the meeting prior to Troy’s accident appears below.

The opening meeting of the 2024/25 summer season was dominated by Victorian riders at Gillman Speedway on Saturday night (9 November) with the Big V coming home first in more than half the events on the programme.

One of the most dominant was Jack Morrison, who went through the card unbeaten in the Division 1 Solo races, and won all of his races by a comfortable margin. There was nothing much between the other four, Dayle Wood, Matt Marson, Harry Sadler and Patrick Hamilton, for the minor placings though and one of the best races was heat four when Marson, Hamilton and Sadler were wheel-to-wheel for the whole race. The final points (behind Morrison on 12) saw Wood (with a fall in one ride) and Marson on 7 points, Hamilton on 6 and Sadler on 4.

The Under 16 250cc Solo races mirrored the Division 2 races with local boy Kobi Canning and Victorian Nate Shortt taking two wins each after some close races and both finished with 10 points. Ruby Chapman was third in each race but cut the margin between herself and the boys quite a bit between the first and last heats.

It was another Victorian domination in the other two wheeled class with Riley Plum and Chloe Ackerley winning six of the eight heats in the Gillman Flat Track Solo Championship. With the final not held the championship was decided on the heat points and went to Plum with the predicted maximum 20 points, ahead of Ackerley on 17, Brent Webley 17 and Andrew Rost 16. Plum was well in front in his races but there was some close racing between Ackerley, Webley, Rost and Dale Knights when they met.

Top scorers in the Sidecar heats were Mildura’s Byren Gates and Michael O’Loughlin, although technically Gates lives across the river at Gol Gol in New South Wales! Gates and O’Loughlin scored a maximum 12 points from their four rides to finish ahead of Josh Pascoe/Greg Black on 10 and Justin Plaisted/Damian Egan and Malcolm German/Cameron White on 9.

Plaisted did beat Gates when they met in heat six but only after an aggressive last corner pass which earned him an exclusion, and saw some conflict between the two pairs after the race when they obviously disagreed on the fairness of the pass.

To further rub salt in the wounds of the South Aussies, Mildura’s Blake Schlein won all five of his rides in the Under 16 125cc Junior Solos on the infield track, beating Riley Stout, Ryleigh McGregor and William Nicol in the final.

The full heat results are on the Gillman Speedway website. The next meeting is the South Australian 500cc and 250cc Solo Championships on November 30. Nominations are also on the Gillman website and are updated daily.