- North Arm Speedway
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North Arm Speedway North Arm Location Grand Trunkway, Gillman, South Australia 5013 Coordinates 34°49′25″S 138°31′21″E / 34.82361°S 138.5225°ECoordinates: 34°49′25″S 138°31′21″E / 34.82361°S 138.5225°E Capacity 5,000 Owner Government of South Australia Operator Speedway Riders' Association of South Australia Inc. Opened 26 July 1981 Closed 1997 Major events Australian Solo Championship
Australian Under-21 Solo Championship
South Australian Solo Championship
South Australian Sidecar Championship
Jack Young Solo Cup
Kevin O'Connell Memorial
Harry Denton Memorial ShieldSpeedway Surface Dolomite and shale Length 0.173 mi (0.280 km) North Arm Speedway was the first dedicated motorcycle speedway ever built in Adelaide, South Australia and was located in the industrial suburb of Gillman. It was run by the Speedway Riders' Association of South Australia and ran from 1981 until its forced closure in 1997.
Contents
History
The speedway was opened on Sunday 26 July 1981 by the Speedway Riders' Association on land owned by the Government. Following the closure of Rowley Park Speedway in April 1979 the only Dirt track racing venue in Adelaide was the new Speedway Park which has a clay surface, something that suited car racing but not motorcycle speedway so it as decided to build a motorcycle only venue with a Dolomite surface.
The track itself was approximately 280m in length, which while considered small by Australian track standards (Aussie speedways are usually 350-550m in length as most run cars as well), it was roughly the same length as most tracks in Britain. The safety fence was a 2m high chain mesh fence on top of a 1ft high wooden retaining fence. Lights were installed for night meetings although spectator capacity was only around 5,000. Due to North Arm's small spectator capacity both the Australian Sidecar Championship and the Australian Solo Championship were awarded to Speedway Park with its capacity to hold over 10,000 spectators in both 1982 and 1983 respectively.
When it first opened North Arm Speedway held regular Sunday afternoon meetings so as not to compete with Speedway Park which ran Friday nights and had the bikes on the program. After the 1984/85 season, bikes were off the program at Speedway park following the death of rider Kevin O'Connell and from 1985/86 North Arm began holding regular Friday night meetings which lasted until the speedway's closure. During the winter of 1987 the pits at North Arm were also re-located. Originally they were outside the back straight but were moved to outside of the front straight behind the control tower (which also incorporated the announcers box). The old pits became car parking while Turn 3 for the solo's (Turn 2 for the sidecars) became the Old Pits Corner.
From 1983 until it closed in 1997 North Arm became the regular host of the South Australian Solo and Sidecar championships, hosting the title 10 times. The only other tracks to host the title during this period were the Westline Speedway in Whyalla (1986/87) and Riverview Speedway in Murray Bridge (1984/85, 1987/88, 1990/91).
North Arm hosted the 1992 Australian Solo Championship where a capacity crowd of over 5,000 fans saw Leigh Adams from Victoria win the first of a record 10 national championships. Adams set a track record in the 2nd heat of the night with a time of 58.74 seconds for the 4 lap race. The record he broke had been set in Heat 1 of the championship by reigning South Aussie Champ Craig Hodgson who won in a time of 59.11 seconds. Leigh Adams won with 14 points from North Arm's own Shane Parker on 13 and Queensland's Mark Carlson third on 11 points. This meeting also saw the crash which almost ended the career of Australia's former World #3 from 1990, Todd Wiltshire who suffered injuries bad enough to force him to retire at age 23 before making a comeback in 1997. Wiltshire, battling with Jason Lyons for the lead going into the last turn of Heat 3, tried a pass on the outside and went down, sliding into the wooden safety fence in the old pit corner.
Unfortunately during its 16 year life span, North Arm was never awarded the right to host the Australian Sidecar Championship, although it did host some of Australia's richest Sidecar meetings.
North Arm Speedway's spectator capacity was pushed to the limit on a number of occasions including test Matches between Australia with riders such as Phil Crump, Todd Wiltshire, Leigh Adams and local riders Shane Parker, Scott Norman and Shane Bowes taking on visiting 'teams' such as a "Rest of the World" team in 1990 including Gary Havelock of England, Mitch Shirra of New Zealand, and Shawn Moran of the United States (while the injured Sam Ermolenko was guest commentator on the night). In 1991 Australia faced a powerful Swedish team led by 1990 World Champion Per Jonsson, former Ice Racing World Champion Erik Stenlund as well as 1990 World finalists Jimmy Nilsen and Henrik Gustafsson. The Swede's also had in their riding lineup a young rider who was not only the reigning Swedish Champion but the rider would go on equal Ivan Mauger's six Speedway World Championships, the great Tony Rickardsson. Both the 1990 and 1991 test matches attracted 4,000 and 4,800 fans respectively, well up on previous crowd figures for the speedway.
The 1990/91 season also saw the first, and so far only tour of Australia by the official USSR team who while not facing Australia in a test, the Soviets faced state teams and various other 'select' teams. They faced a South Australian Select team in their visit to North Arm on 28 December 1990 with the locals, strengthened by 'ring-ins' Dennis Löfqvist from Sweden and David Norris from England (resident North Arm international riders) defeating the Russians 53-37 in a match closer than the score suggests. Actual local riders Shane Bowes and Shane Parker top scored for the 'SA' with 13 and 8 points respectively while Oleg Kurguskin with 11 and the late Rif Saitgareev with 10 points top scored for the Russians.
During its life time North Arm was also the Australian base for various international riders racing in the Australian Speedway season with riders such as Vesa Ylinen of Finland, Dennis Löfqvist from Sweden and David Norris from England all basing themselves in Adelaide. North Arm has also been the Australian base for two future Speedway World Champions. 20 year old Gary Havelock from England (1992 World Champion) spent the 1987/88 Australian season based at North Arm while 2010 World Champ Tomasz Gollob from Poland, another rider only 20 years old, made North Arm his Aussie home during 1991/92.
Following the 1996/97 Australian Speedway season (generally run between October and April), North Arm Speedway was closed when the South Australian Government reclaimed the land that the speedway was located on. Most of the track surface was then moved less than 2km away to the new Gillman Speedway to form the base of a 213m track that was used for daytime practice meetings until a larger 400m track was built for race meetings before the current 300m track was opened in 2000.
Today the site of North Arm Speedway shows nothing of its past as a speedway as industrial buildings now occupy the land. The last remnants of the speedway were removed in mid-2004 when what was left of the track itself was cleared and building starting in mid-2005. When looking on Google Earth at historic photos the start/finish line of the speedway was on the Grand Trunkway (road) side of the track.
Competitors
Some of the competitors who raced at North Arm Speedway between 1981 and 1997 were:
- Phil Crump (
) (Solo)♦ - John Boulger () (Solo)♦
- Mitch Shirra (
) (Solo) - Mark Loram (
) (Solo)** - Vesa Ylinen (
) (Solo) - Per Jonsson (
) (Solo)** - Tony Rickardsson () (Solo)**
- Todd Wiltshire () (Solo)♦
- Jimmy Nilsen () (Solo)
- Leigh Adams () (Solo)♦
- Craig Hodgson () (Solo) †
- Mark Fiora () (Solo)
- Billy Sanders () (Solo)♦
- Darryl Branford () (Solo)
- Erik Stenlund () (Solo)
- Gary Havelock () (Solo)**
- Shane Parker () (Solo)
- Rinat Mardanshin (
) (Solo) - Scott Norman () (Solo)
- Shane Bowes () (Solo)
- Mitch Shirra () (Solo)
- Rod Hunter () (Solo)
- Tomasz Gollob (
) (Solo)** - Jeremy Doncaster () (Solo)
- Henrik Gustafsson () (Solo)
- Craig Boyce () (Solo)♦
- Glenn Doyle () (Solo)♦
- Dennis Löfqvist () (Solo)
- Jason Crump () (Solo)♦**
- David Norris () (Solo)
- Ryan Sullivan () (Solo)♦
- Sam Ermolenko (
) (Solo)** - Oleg Kurguskin () (Solo)
- Shawn Moran () (Solo)
- Rif Saitgareev () (Solo) †
- Gary Moon () (Sidecar)♦
- Jim Irwin () (Sidecar)
- Brian Bascombe () (Sidecar (passenger)
- Darrin Treloar () (Sidecar)♦
- Shane Souter () (Sidecar)♦
- Peter Fleet () (Sidecar)
- Greg Black () (Sidecar (passenger)
- Chris Rae () (Sidecar)
- Rob Hardy () (Sidecar (passenger)
- Dennis Nash () (Sidecar)♦
- Andrew Cleave () (Sidecar)♦
- Martien Hurkmans () (Sidecar)
- Brian Shultz () (Sidecar) †
- Shane Wade () (Sidecar (passenger)
- Neil Munro () (Sidecar)♦
** Current or past Speedway World Champion
♦ Current or past Australian Champion
† - DeceacedReferences
- Books
- Loader, Tony (1991). Loader's International Speedway Annual 1991. Tony Loader. pp. 55, 61–83. ISSN 1036-4404.
External Links
Categories:- Motorcycle speedway
- Motorsport venues in Australia
- Speedway in Australia
- Defunct speedway venues
- Phil Crump (
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