Workington celebrated the life of young supporter Jay Cartmell with a memorial meeting which just beat the weather.
Stage at the GT Tyres Arena in Northside it was not possible to quite reach the conclusion, but 18 of the scheduled 20 races in the Four Team Tournament took place.
There had been heavy rain on Friday and throughout the night but faired-up for the bulk of the meeting. However, with rain moving back in a halt had to be called.
Blaze Bandits were the victors with Danish racer Kevin Juhl Pedersen winning all three of his rides in an impressive debut display, while Jack Shimelt won all four races featuring the respective No 5s.
With the planned three-heat Individual competition cancelled due to the conditions, trophies were awarded to the top three senior scorers, which were Pedersen, home star Antti Vuolas and Oxford’s Mitch McDiarmid.
The four team tournament has been organised in memory of a speedway-mad youngster Jay Cartmell who died in an incident last year at Warcop.
All four teams were named after figures from Jay’s favourite game Fortnite.
Blaze Bandits, the Midas Meteors and Ragnaroks’ Racers were joined by Deadfire’s Demons.
Ahead of the event yesterday, Workington Comets team manager James Denham said: “Jay is an example of what speedway does for people.
“Members of the Cartmell family have given a heartfelt thank you to every single person and business who have pledged support, donations, raffle prizes and their time ahead of Saturday’s meeting.
“This is going to be a very special meeting for Jay, and it will also be very competitive with very evenly matched teams facing each other throughout.
“Leigha and James have done a fantastic job of pulling this line-up together.
“A four-team meeting is a format we rarely see nowadays in speedway and it should prove to be very exciting with 23 heats of racing – we just hope the public pull together and support the meeting.
“Also a huge thanks must go to all of our staff and the supporters club for their behind the scenes work in pulling together everything to make the day as special as possible for Jay.”
Afterwards it was announced that Danish prospect Pedersen had been added to the Poole line-up for the Blue Riband at Wimborne Road this Wednesday.
Former SGP2 star Pedersen is keen for UK experience and is putting himself in the shop-window for next season, having impressed in his appearance at Workington on Saturday.
Ex-Pirates reserve Vinnie Foord has also been named in the field along with his current Workington team-mate Fraser Bowes, the latter having scored 13 points on his first visit to the Dorset venue this summer.
Pirates promoter Dan Ford said: “Kevin made contact with us enquiring if there were any opportunities open to him, and so this is an ideal chance to give him a taste of an English track.
“No doubt he will feel at home amongst Tobias, Nicolai (Klindt) and Jonas (Jeppesen) as we have a quarter of our field from Denmark.
“We know our fans enjoy seeing new riders compete here and we are looking forward to seeing Kevin on Wednesday.
“I’m delighted to have both Fraser and Vinnie joining our event.
“Fraser has generally ridden well beyond his five-point assessed average, and with Vinnie you just know there are going to be some heart-in-the-mouth moments as all he wants to do is just race and race.”
The scores from Jay Cartmell’s memorial meeting were:
- Midas’ Meteors 25 – Tate Zischke 3; Justin Sedgmen 5; Dayle Wood 6; Luke Killeen 7; Jack Franklin 4.
- Blazes’ Bandits 34 – Antti Vuolas 8; Kevin Juul Pedersen 9; Paul Starke 4; Sam McGurk 1; Jack Shimelt 12.
- Ragnarok’s Racers 29 – Troy Batchelor 8; Mitch McDiarmid 7;
- Jack Smith 5; Ben Trigger 6; Laylen Richardson 3.
- Deadfire’s Demons 24 – Jye Etheridge 5; Luke Harrison 4; Vinnie Foord 6; Adam Roynon 2; Elliot Kelly 7.
