The 2015 Speedway season gets underway at Central Park on Easter Monday afternoon with a National Trophy match between the Kent SLYDE Kings and the Eastbourne IT First Eagles.
First blood in this holiday weekend double derby delight for Speedway fans went to the side from Sussex, who along with holders Mildenhall Fen Tigers and Hertfordshire-based Rye House Raiders are contesting the National Trophy this term.
The Kent SLYDE Kings though will take heart from the way they came back in the match on Good Friday to finish the stronger and know that this time the track conditions are far less likely to favour the Eastbourne septet.
For Kent they’ll be home debuts for local youngsters Jamie Couzins and Danno Verge plus a first outing in the Invicta red and white race jacket as a SLYDE King for the mega-talented, new signing James Shanes.
Adam Sheppard makes just his second home appearance in the Kent side too, having ridden one National Trophy match last term. The four newcomers are joined by the three returning stalwarts of last year’s Play Off semi final reaching side: skipper Ben Morley (starting his third season in the Kent ranks), last year’s Rider of the Year Danny Ayres and another Kent born and bred racer, Aaron Baseby.
For the opposition, Morley’s team mate from both of the Sittingbourne Dog Stadium-based club’s previous seasons in Speedway’s National League David Mason is now the visiting skipper – the record-points scorer at this level of Speedway is expected to be well again to show what he can do around the Central Park circuit in the colours this time of the Eagles.
Mason was absent on Good Friday through illness and if he doesn’t make it on Monday, the side from Sussex are expected again to replace him with their double-figures scoring guest from that meeting, Daniel Greenwood.
The revelation in the Eastbourne side on Friday was their new Kiwi rider, Bradley Wilson-Dean. Twice the Under 21 champion in his native New Zealand, his arrival in virtual maximum form (missing out on a full house only due to a seized engine in his final ride at Arlington) recalled to those with very long memories how another rider from NZ once pitched up as a newcomer to these shores at Eastbourne and went onto conqueror the Speedway world: his name was Ivan Mauger!
A rider almost as well known and as well liked by the Central Park faithful as Mason is Marc Owen – who vowed the crowds with his flying dashes around the boards at the track racing last year for King’s Lynn – Owen is now a heat leader with his home county side, Eastbourne and is sure to be a huge threat to the home side’s chances.
First time visitors to Central Park, Danny Warwick and Georgie Wood have local connections aplenty though. The reigning Beach Racing Champion Warwick was number one for the Conference League side the Crusaders based at nearby Iwade back in 2008; whilst Wood is a graduate of the training facility at Iwade and hails from Maidstone. Kelsey Dugard has good memories of racing at Central Park – finishing a creditable sixth in the GB Under 19s Championship Final staged by the Kent club late last season.
The gates open at 1.30pm on Easter Monday with tapes up at 3pm.
Teams (in alphabetical order):
Kent SYLDE Kings:
Danny Ayres; Aaron Baseby; Jamie Couzins; Ben Morley (captain); James Shanes; Adam Sheppard; Danno Verge
Eastbourne IT First Eagles:
Richard Andrews; Kelsey Dugard; David Mason (captain) Marc Owen; Danny Warwick; Bradley Wilson-Dean; Georgie Wood
Images courtesy of www.psp-images.co.uk