The Kent SLYDE Kings have one of the youngest and most talented teams in British Speedway in 2018 has been amply shown with four of the Central Park Stadium-based side appearing in the draw for the semi-finals of the GB Under 21 Championship.
For the first time in a number of years there will be two semi-finals for the country’s premier junior title championship, with seven berths available from each qualifier for the Final to be held at Birmingham Speedway’s Perry Barr Stadium in April.
The two riders seeded directly into the Final are defending champion and Team GB World Cup star, Robert Lambert and the 2017 National League Riders’ Champion, Belle Vue Colts’, Dan Bewley.
The two semis to decide the 14 to take on that duo are being staged, respectively, at Eastbourne’s Arlington Stadium on Saturday April 7th. with the other semi up in the north-east at Newcastle Speedway the following day.
To the surprise of many and to a certain amount of dismay from Kent’s very loyal supporters who follow the riders across the country, the draw has placed all four of the Kings’ youngsters not in the semi-final just over the county border in Sussex, but instead way up north at the famous but distant Brough Park Stadium on the second Sunday of the campaign.
That old adage in the sport of ‘Have Speedway bike, will travel’ will have rarely ever been more apposite for the four youngsters, Jack Thomas (competing in his second U21 semi), teenager Anders Rowe and the two new signings for 2018, Taylor Hampshire and Alex Spooner – because after an opening Easter week of home matches on Good Friday and Easter Monday and challenge match second legs at Eastbourne and at Birmingham, the quartet are facing the longest of long distance travelling the following weekend.
The first National Trophy away match of the campaign sees the SLYDE Kings down in deepest Devon on Friday 6th. April taking on the highly fancied Plymouth Devils and now the result of this individual championship draw means that the four teens are going from the south-west to the far north-east with that trip to Newcastle for a 6.30pm start time on the Sunday.
Providing the opposition at Brough Park will be a team mate of Thomas & Rowe’s from last year (and another who’ll be facing the same journey that weekend), New Zealander Bradley Andrews – plying his racing trade with the Plymouth-based Devils in 2018.
From the reigning champions Belle Vue Colts are the imposing pair of Jack Smith (son of former World Finalist, Andy Smith) and former GB Youth Champion Kyle Bickley along with their team mates from the National Speedway Stadium in Manchester, Joe Lawlor and Ben Woodhull.
Another former national champion at the Under 16 age range, Jack Parkinson-Blackburn is in the field – ‘JPB’ as he’s known is riding in the 2018 Travel Plus Tours National League [TPTNL] for newbies, Coventry Bees. And possibly the favourite among the 16 up in Newcastle all aiming to finish in the top seven looking for that all important Final qualification is Ipswich Witches’ Connor Mountain. Mountain finished second in the semi when staged at Central Park two years ago.
The winner of that semi and it’s a feat he repeated last year too at Peterborough is former Kent Kings’ favourite and twice European Grass Track Champion James Shanes – Shanes now with Poole in the top division is riding in the Eastbourne semi final rather than up in Newcastle – alongside the likes of Arlington homesters, Tom Brennan, Jason Edwards and Kelsey Dugard, along with another rider strongly fancied for the GB title, Swindon Robins’ Zach Wajtknecht.