Over 120 competitors from as far a field as Townsville and Adelaide will converge on the Blayney Showground (NSW) this Saturday, November 1 for the annual motorcycle long track meeting.

The Panorama Motor Cycle Club this year host the 2008 Black Toyota of Blayney sponsored New South Wales Long Track Championship meeting as they continue a tradition of staging the popular annual meeting that was first staged in Bathurst in 1995.

In all there are eight championship classes on the program with half of them having enough entries to require three rounds of heats and then a four lap final to decide the outcome, while the other classes will de decided over four point-scoring rounds. In addition the popular Twin Cylinder Challenge class and five junior support classes are also programmed as part of the 71 race program.

There are seven reigning, or recent, national champions among the contestants in the various classes of competition, plus numerous championship placegetters, as well as a wave of exciting new talent that has entered the senior ranks over the past year.

Sidecar racing opens the program with five times Australian Speedway champion Darrin Treloar headlining the entries and he will be reunited with former passenger Allan Griffiths after his passenger of the past few years, Justin Plaisted was injured in a recent motocross accident.

Newly crowned Australian Dirt Track champions Rodney O’Malley and passenger Beau Stangl deserve favouritism for the dirt track sidecar class.

The long track solo class appears wide open with a mix of experienced campaigners and a few teenagers set to battle it out.  Lee Herne, Daniel Mason, Tim Heffernan and Adelaide based Nathan Hedley stand out among the chances.

As usual many of the riders have set themselves up for a busy day by entering more than one class of competition, with seven riders to contest three classes.

The rider who will attract the most attention is North Coast rider Michael Kirkness who has just returned from a highly successful season of flat track racing in the AMA Series in the USA. Kirkness has entered in three classes, including a first-time appearance in the Twin Cylinder Challenge class where his opponents include another prolific dirt track and long track winner, Rohan Tungate and West Wyalong Harley favourite Rodney Anderson.

Last year’s Australian champion in the 125cc class, Michael Dyer looks the rider to beat again in that class.
 
Newly crowned Australian dirt Track champion, Luke Richards and previous champion Damien Koppe head the line-up for the very competitive 250cc 4-stroke class.

Michael Kirkness stands out as the benchmark in the combined over 4500cc 4-stroke and 500cc 2-stroke class.

The 250cc 2-stroke class is another that looks wide open with Marty McNamara and Tim Heffernan among the leading contenders.

As is usual, the premier up to 450cc 4-stroke class has attracted the largest entry list and there will be three heats in each round as the finalists are determined. Besides Tungate, Kirkness, Richards and Koppe, the likes of Koby Wooderson, Carew Dickinson, Ian Hamilton and Alan McDonald  should ensure some red-hot competition.

One interesting feature of the meeting will be the performance of several youngsters, in some cases 16-year-olds who have just moved into senior competition after a highly successful time in junior competition.  Grant Charnock is one such rider and he has entered three classes, while Taylor Poole appears in one.

Among the entrants for the junior support classes are multi-title winning rider Todd Kurtz, who is nearing the end of his junior racing days, and another national champion Daniel Begley.
 
Practice will get under way around 8.30am with racing following and the 71-event program continuing through to late afternoon.