KENT KINGS
SPEEDWAY
following the motorcycle sport,
“There was an enormous void
to fill for followers of the sport
in Kent and South London since
the closure one by one of all the
tracks which previously hosted
Speedway League racing”.
each team do battle over four
adrenalin-filled heats on a very
tight dirt track at speeds of up to
60mph on 500cc machines with
no brakes! The fans see all the
action from the vantage point of
Central Park’s large grandstand!
Derek goes on, “So when
Roger Cearns (the grand-son
of WJ Cearns, who had built
the UK’s first ever Speedway
track back in the 1920s) took
the step of bringing Speedway
to the country’s most modern
Greyhound Racing stadium in
Sittingbourne two years ago,
it has rekindled the passion of
supporters starved of the sport
in this area for so long and
introduced this family-friendly
event to so many new fans.”
Derek tracks the rise of the club,
“We race every Monday night
during the season and have
had families attending from
the off because the sport is so
exciting and the atmosphere
so friendly. On track the team
has gone from strength to
strength – finishing in third
place in the National League in
2014 in only our second ever
season. Central Park, which
has excellent facilities and can
be reached easily by motorway
and by rail from London, has
quickly established itself as one
of the very top venues in the UK
– and we were given the honour
of staging one of the national
individual championship finals
last season.”
Speedway is unique in the field
of motor sport as it is teambased with sides competing in
a national division with tracks
across the UK competing in 15
race matches home and away.
Each race sees two riders from
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The future looks even brighter,
“We open up again in 2015
on Easter Monday and will be
running every Bank Holiday
Monday in the afternoon and
every ordinary Monday in the
evening – tapes go up at 3pm
on Bank Holidays and at 6.30pm
on normal evenings.
The National League is growing
in size and importance every
season – and in 2015 sides
from nearby Eastbourne and
from Britain’s Second City,
Birmingham are joining the
division. It’s exciting times
indeed for the competition with
more local derbies this coming
season and also some big clubs
like the Brummies sending
sides to take on the Kings at
Central Park. The season will
run through to October with the
Kent Kings determined to go
one further from last year and
reach the Championship Grand
Final and pick up silverware.”