Short Track Racing
Short Track Racing: American style dirt track motorcycling event at Redcar Speedway.
By Admin
Aug 13, 2007, 07:57

The South Tees Motorsports Park home of the Redcar Bears Speedway club breaks new ground on Saturday 18th. August at 6.30pm with the first-ever staging in the north-east of American-style motorcycle dirt-track racing: Round Five of this year’s Silkolene Short Track UK championship.

Using dirt-track ovals (ranging from traditional Speedway circuits to trotting tracks) all across the country, STUK has brought to the UK the hugely successful American motorcycling discipline known Stateside as Flat Track, where adapted Supermoto, Motocross, Enduro or Dirt Track machines (remarkably ranging in size all the way from 125cc up to 1200cc) are used in 12 rider, six to 12 laps races in frantic and exciting action. 

With such a range of skills required, the discipline attracts interest here from Road Racers (with the likes of Isle of Man TT legend John McGuiness and Superbikes star Steve Plater having entered earlier rounds) and Motocrossers and Supermoto exponents alike; plus a variety of top Speedway and Grasstrack riders too.  Perfect to bridge those different styles and to provide a strong local interest is huge STMP favourite, Rusty Hodgson. 

Local hero, Rusty has been taking a breather in recent weeks from the hectic schedule that’s seen him rise from raw novice to Premier League Speedway star in double-quick time over barely the past 12 months.  Before that the 26 year old from Skutterskelfe, near Hutton Rudby was one of the region’s top motorcycle Road Racers – finishing eighth in his first-ever campaign in the prestigious Virgin Yamaha R6 Cup in 2003.   Rusty has north-eastern dirt-track motorbike racing fuel literally coursing through his blood - with his grand-father being one of the pioneering legends around these parts: Frank Hodgson captaining the Middlesboro Bears to back-to-back Northern League titles in the early 1940s; and his father Russ having starred in the 1970s for the one-time Sunderland Speedway club.  With Rusty’s background as an all-round motorcyclist, it’s no wonder he’s looking forward to the challenge of Saturday’s Short Track meeting,

“I’ve been a fan of the Short Track UK series ever since the championship started in 2005 and I've always been keen to have a go. I've got a good background that should hopefully help me to get to grips with the discipline pretty quickly.  On top of that obviously I've got the track knowledge. I'm hoping that the Bears and Bays fans will turn out in large numbers to see this different and hugely exciting spectacle and to lend me their usual terrific support.” The format sees competitors mounted on adapted Motocross, Supermoto or Dirttrack machines with the front brake removed, compete in three heats each of six laps' duration with 12 riders in each race; with points on offer from 15 for first down to one point for 12th. place.  When these qualifying points are totted up, the top 12 scorers then go for broke over 12 laps this time in the Grand Final looking for those all-important Championship points awarded as 20 for the winner, 16 for runner-up, 14 for the third rostrum position and then 12 down to one point for 15th.

Leading the Short Track standings at the moment is Italian Marco Belli who was the 2005 champion.  Last year, Belli triumphed in the companion event, the Thunderbikes.  This event sponsored by Harley Davidson is run on a similar format to the main championship but utilising 600cc to 1000cc twin and multi-cylinder machines.  The biggest thrills on Saturday are likely to come on the hugely anticipated occasions these huge monster-machines go handle-bar to handlebar around the impressively banked dark shale 266 metres circuit at South Bank!

The future belongs in any sport, of course, ultimately to the youth – so with the official blessing of the governing body of all competitive motorcycling in the UK, the ACU and sponsored by the famous Bolton-based motorcycle manufacturers CCM, an extra attraction on Saturday will be the Short Track Junior Cup – for youngsters aged between 12 and 15 years old.

And completely uniquely for the dirt track at Dormer Way (just past The Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough adjacent to the Skipper's Lane Industrial Estate) there will be four-wheeled action too, in the form of the Welbourns Quads Short Track: a brand-new dirt track racing class for 2007 with six machines a race racing off a unique grid system - meaning that the passing and excitement is at a different level.

An added attraction on Saturday will be the chance to win a Harley-Davidson Sportster XL883 in an easy to enter STUK 2007 competition/draw: entries available only on the night.

The action gets underway at 6.30pm with admission adults £8, concessions £6, juniors (12-15) £3, under 11s free.