Aust no1 Daniel Pudney

With thunderstorms and rain forecast for the day , things started off early with just that happening along with heaps of lightning and driving rain.

This soon gave way to a beautiful , Spring day and it stayed that way for the enitire meet.Knowing what the parking is like at Findon we left reasonably early to get a spot and ended up with one of the last available!

Their was a fair crowd on hand today and the eighty eight riders that attended sure bought some support with them.Strangely the division with the most riders was the TinyTots! ...all thirteen of them and they had a ball too.

The riders did their parade lap and assembled around the track with their front wheels facing in while the National Anthem was played to a hatless , standing crowd. Soon after they were all sent back to the pits to start the days racing. As usual the Findon track looked immaculate but a little loose for some competitors but a little maintenence and a watering soon had things looking good again.

The Tinytots all went through their heats and everyone of them got a little Aussie trophy to show around , the riders were , Ella Goulding , Daniel Dobie , Jye Marrollo , Jack Lewis , Ben Pudney , Declan Playfair , Delicia Pride , Taiaha Thompson , David Forester , Emily Makepeace , Locke Pearce , Jacob Pudney and  Nathan White. Phew! that's the lot and believe it or not they had the largest field today.

Division Seven under 7's over 2 laps, was where the points scoring started for the day and it was run over four qualifying heats , as were any division that had more than four riders and they were decided on total points over four heats.

Going through undeafeated on (16) was Jack Norman , closely followed by Michael Ratcliff on (15). Mathew Forester on (14) kept them both honest with steady riding and Jackson Dobie was watching all of them on (13). As you can see there was really nothing between these riders and the final could have gone anywhere.

The final turned out to be a repeat performance of their qualifying with Jack Norman being crowned the Australian Champion for 2008 , this boy certainly knows how to celebrate a win too! Second was Michael Ratcliff followed by Mathew forester and Jackson Dobie. Others that made these guys champions were , Mathew Snowden (11), Bailey Swansson (10), Miriam Thompson (9), Peter Marollo (9), Jack Swansson (7),Kara Shultz (6) who had a big crash and Gage Goulding.

Division Six Under 9's over 3 laps, only had four starters today and was raced over five heats for a total points finish where Matt Bryant (18) became the Australian Champion 2008 closely followed in second with (17) was Todd Clarke. Third was Mathew Hurley (10) with fourth going the way of Jake Kerley (5).

Division Five under 11's over 3 laps, A good field turned up to fight this one out and there was some good racing too , especially when you get five qualified for four spots in the final! Someone had to miss out and a ride-off with the first wo going into the final was the answer. Shane Bentley (16)had already booked number one grid with an unbeaten ride , so had Patrick Evans with (14) and taking grid two .

Trent Forester (12) , Angus Freeman (12) and Brayden Clarke were the ones to have the ride-off. Angus Freeman was the rider who was unlucky enough to have to wait til next year for another crack at an Aussie title. Bentley finished off a perfect day with the win making him Div 5,  2008 Australian Champion. Second went to Patrick Evans , who has been picking up some hardware lately over Brayden Clarke and Trent Forester.

Others that tried hard were Plymouth Christian (10) , Braden Makepeace (9) Shane Hoogmoed (8) Jake Mathews (8) Billy Bax (7) Tiana Debattista (7).

Division Four under 13's over 3 laps otherwise known as Debattista territory, have you ever been told not to go in the water because sharks are lurking , well this is what it must feel like for Josh's competitors as he IS lurking! There were four scratchings from the field and that left elleven starters.

Josh Debattista went through unbeaten on (16) and claimed grid one ahead of a good scrap between team-mate Robbie Vella (14) and Murraylands rider ,Mark Sheldon (14) who is riding very well , and they had to toss a coin for grids two and three.Grid four  went to Michael Karpany (12) who had an unusual thing happen to him on the way to the tapes for the final.His seat pole snapped completely off the bike and was forced to use Lucy Millikins bike in the final.

Unlucky that as he had been going so well.

The final went to Josh Debattista making him the 2008 Australian Champion in div 4. Second went to Mark Sheldon over Robbie Vella and Michael Karpany on that strange bike.Also pushing these riders along were , Jarryd Lilyman(11), another to keep an eye on from the Murraylanders . Lucy Millikin (11) , Austin McDonald (11), Nicole Kinross (8), who was a bit unlucky today , Damien Crawford (8) Annabell Blaker (6) and Georgia Tulloch (5)

Division Three under 15's over 3 laps and this was a great day out for Farren Wills (16) as he breezed through undefeated and claimed grid one in the
final.Getting grid two was Dean Jolly (13) over Anthony Daniels (12) who won the toss of the coin and selected grid four , giving grid three to Jay Walters (12).

The final was a fast race with Farren Wills winning and being crowned the 2008 div3 Australian Champion over dean Jolly , Anthony Daniels and Jay Walters. In race two the tape broke and almost took Gabby Astons head off . Also racing in this division were , Daniel Randall (10), Scott Kinross (7), Sarah Kinross (4), Josh Ritter (4) , who had a huge crash with Gabby Aston (1), Zac Faulkner (1)

Division Over 30's over 4 laps. The man to beat today was Nigel Greenhalgh (16) who was unbeaten going into the final on grid one ahead of Warren Corbett (15) on grid two , grid three saw Robert Fleming (13) with Steve Clarke (11) grabbing four. Greenhalgh came with his race face on today as he took out the final from a very fast Corbett , making him the 2008 Over 30's Australian Champion.

Third went to Robert fleming with fourth going to Steve clarke. A couple of crashes amongst this lot didn't help other competitors chances either. The remainder of the field were , Jessica Lamb (9), Darren Schultz (6), Andrew Dobie (5), Robert Thompson (4), Darren Mathews (1), Rick Jolly (0).

Division Two under 18's over 4 laps , This is where it starts to get interesting as the winner of this division (and  Division one) was not only going to take home a magnificent trophy they also got an automatic seeding into the Quarter finals of the World Championships , here in Australia , next February, so there was going to be some fierce riding in this lot.

No-one got a maximum in this division but a tie for first saw a coin toss for grids one and two between Ross Priest (15) and Joel Chadwick (15) while grid three went to Robert Fitzpatrick (13) and four went to Cody Chadwick (11).The final was a Chadwick affair with Cody riding shotgun for Joel as he went on to be seeded and named the Div 2 2008 australian Champion after winning.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Third went to Robert Fitzpatrick who quietly went about his day only dropping a couple of points and fourth went to Ross Priest who only dropped a single point ,until the final!

Other riders competing today were , Bobby McMillan (8), Daniel Bax (8), Tony Bax (5), LuCinda Spear (3), Morgan Faulkner (1), Ben Blaker (1).

Division One (Open) over 4 laps. Paul White was a great rider today and he didn't win here but I think it would have been a great race between Greenhalgh and White (Paul qualifies for over 30's) however his talents weren't wasted here either. A crash with Ryan Edson soon showed he meant business with the fastest re-mount of the day.

Qualifying for the final wasn't an easy thing to do , as , like I mentioned before the winner gets automatically seeded to the World Championships quarter finals , in this division. Five different riders had wins out of the eight starters and some pretty spirited ,hard racing was the norm with one huge shoulder given out to Brad Gentle by Daniel Pudney ended with brad collecting the fence pretty hard in heat three.

Pudney top scored going into the final on (15) with Cameron crisp riding well and slotting into grid two with (13) Ryan Edson (12) was another that is riding very well and deserved his grid three. The last spot on the grid was tied for between Daniel Thompson (11) and Paul White (11) so a ride-off for that final spot took place and it was a beauty too with swapping each corner ,tactics and speed with White taking the win and advancing to the final.

The final was basically won at the start with things just panning out for Pudney as he went to the front and stayed there becoming the 2008 Australian Division 1 Champion  over A fast finishing Crisp from White and Edson.

The trophy presentation took place at the statr line and Bill Rufus ,the Australian Speedway Councils President , was asked to present the winners and placegetters with their trophies as they were intoduced by Mick Harley ,who also commentated.The Refferee for today and did a magnificent job ,was Meegan Rufus.

All the winners recieved their trophies and were photographed and did their victory lap.

That was a great days racing and shows just how good our Aussie team will be as most of them were on show today and well amongst the trophies.

My pick for rider of the meet would have to go to Farren Wills , after the recent injury to his lung , to come back better than he was before and in that short span of time he has picked up an Aussie Title as well, well done mate!