Cordell Rogerson leads Billy van Eerde
Photos: David Lamont
The Redloh Cup was held at the Central Coast Junior Motorcycle Club’s Somersby speedway track on Saturday, May 31, with a field of 16 riders from NSW and Queensland competing.
Heat races were fiercely contested with close racing and plenty of action. At the end of the heats, Matt Gilmore and Zach Cook (both from Cowra) and Billy van Eerde (Singleton) were the highest scoring riders and qualified for the A Final. The next four highest scorers from the heats went into the B Final.
Cordell Rogerson (Queensland) earned a place in the A Final after his win over Liam Cox, Jimmy Jones and Jedd List. Gilmore and Cook have been front runners in recent times with Gilmore already having a couple of major trophies to his name.
Rogerson has been doing a lot of travelling, racing as often as possible around the country, and is a hot prospect for the future. Van Eerde has raced dirt track and is a relative newcomer to junior speedway. He showed some promise earlier in the year and has steadily improved to make his first major junior speedway final. The final saw Gilmore victorious from a tenacious van Eerde, Cooke and Rogerson.
Junior speedway, for riders from nine to under 16 years, has been enjoying a period of growth over the last two to three years thanks to the world championship success of Australia’s Chris Holder. The Redloh Cup was inaugurated in 2013 to commemorate Chris Holder’s SGP World Championship win and also honour the dedication and commitment of the Holder family to speedway generally.
Holder, from Appin NSW, won the world speedway grand prix championship in 2012. Before that he had raced regularly as a junior at the Central Coast Junior Motorcycle Club’s Somersby track. The Central Coast Junior Motorcycle Club runs regular junior speedway race meetings at Somersby as part of its club championship.