Meeting favourite Justin Sedgmen wins the Jack Young Cup at Gillman Speedway - December 2016

December 11, 2016 by Gillman Media

Hot favourite Justin Sedgmen won the Jack Young Cup at Gillman Speedway last night (10 Dec), leading home Jordan Stewart, Jaimon Lidsey and Cooper Riordan in an all-Mildura rider final.

Sedgmen was unbeaten on the night, winning his four heat rides to finish with 12 points before the final, but had to pull off the passing move of the night to win the final after tricky start. Starting from gate two, Sedgmen went straight for the high line in turn one (see top photo by Judy Mackay) but had to throttle off and dropped to third place. Lidsey and Stewart took over the lead and were side by side down the back straight but going into turn three Sedgmen had everyone holding their breath as he went between them to regain the lead, and from that point it was plain sailing.

The win was the second Cup win for Sedgmen and at the presentation he was happy to relate that he is an ex-Edinburgh rider and Jack Young was an Edinburgh rider when he won his first World Championship so it had some extra significance to him.

He also revealed he didn’t realise he’d won it before, which might sound strange but is understandable. On that occasion, almost six years ago to the day, rain caused the final to be cancelled and there was no trophy presentation but Sedgmen was declared the winner with a 12 point maximum from his four heats, including the fastest times of the night.

On Saturday night, Riordan (8 points) and Stewart (7) were the other direct qualifiers from the final, while Lidsey (4) qualified by winning the last chance semi-final from Robert Medson (1), Dakota Ballantyne (4) and Brayden McGuinness (7 points in group 2 and winner of the Qualifying Final).

16-year-old first season rider McGuinness had a disappointing start to the night with bike failure in his first two rides but then won his other two rides to scrape into the Qualifying final on a countback, then won an exciting race with Jack Morrison (8) to qualify for the Semi-Final in which he surprised everyone by passing Lidsey to take the lead on the opening lap. Even when Lidsey regained the lead on the next lap, McGuinness continued to challenge him until his bike lost power on the third lap.

In the Sidecar events, Mark Mitchell/Luke Mitchell also went through the night unbeaten, with 12 points in the heats and then a win over Warren Monson/Andrew Summerhayes (10), Neale Hancock/Brendon Johnson (8) and Dean Hobbs/Justin Richards(7 and winner of semi-final) in the final.

There was a lengthy delay after the last heat race of the night when Mick Tucker/Corey Palmer clipped the bike of Tom Adams/Katelyn Silvy and cartwheeled and rolled about a third of the length of the straight. Although Tucker and Palmer were down for quite some time and both were later taken to hospital, we are pleased to report they were both released the next day without any serious injuries.

Junior Solo rider Connor Bailey was not so lucky however. After a stylish win in his first 250cc race, he fell in one of his later 125cc races and was hit by a following bike and suffered a bad concussion and four fractured vertebrae. The good news is he has already returned home and will make a complete recovery, the bad news for the lad, who is super keen and dedicated, is that he’ll be out for most of the season.

Bad news for another super keen rider, but at the other end of the age scale to young Bailey. Veteran rider Gary Fischer fell in his first ride and although he took his remaining three rides, he later found he’d ripped the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee.

This was the last meeting before Christmas. The next meeting is the South Australian Solo Championship on Wednesday night, 28 December.