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Last Updated: Mar 15th, 2010 - 21:18:47 |
Barry Briggs will be making the first stop on his marathon motorcycle Sports Relief charity ride from the north of Scotland to the south of England at Edinburgh’s Armadale Stadium on Friday, March 19.
Four-times speedway World Champion Briggs officially launched his bid to raise £120,000 for 12 wheelchair bound former riders at Wembley last week, but it will be at Armadale that Briggo and his son Tony will start their tour of tracks the length and breath of Great Britain.
Briggs has ridden in Edinburgh on several occasions and, in fact, his youngest brother, Wayne, was a fixture in the Monarchs speedway team for several seasons.
But, on this occasion, Barry and Tony will be swapping conventional speedway machines for off-road Yamahas specifically provided and prepared for their long journey south that will start at John O’Groats earlier in the week.
The Briggs’ “Ride” is part of the Sport Relief charity this year but the organisers have agreed that the bulk of the money raised will be equally divided amongst the 12 designated riders.
Says Briggo: “I feel very strongly that we should be doing something to help them. My son Tony was paralysed for four months after a racing accident at Coventry many years ago but he, thankfully, made a recovery. It was a nightmare for our family and we know what it is like to go through that.
“We know that the money won’t cure their ills but it can make a significant difference to their lives. They struggle every day and anything we can do to ease the pain is worth it.” The “Ride” will finish at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium before the start of the 2010 British Speedway Grand Prix. Says Briggs: “We formally started at Wembley, once speedway’s spiritual home, and will end at Cardiff which now hosts the centrepiece of the speedway year.
“The Football Association started the ball rolling with a generous cheque for £1,000 and we have already raised over £10,000. I am confident we can get our target”.
Briggs, now a youthful 75-years-old, has timed his ultimate challenge to coincide with the publication of his latest autobiography, ‘Wembley and Beyond’ which graphically tells the story of a “speedway rider like no other, and a life like no other.”
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