COVID-19 forces Murray Bridge Speedway to change race dates

This post was contributed by MMS Media.

Following the border closure announcement as of midnight on Wednesday night due to the recent Victorian COVID-19 outbreak, Murray Machining and Sheds Speedway Murray Bridge has revised its next three meetings, scheduled from mid-February up until the March long weekend.

With the border closure affecting several teams and officials involved in the upcoming event, and uncertainty of when these restrictions may be lifted, Australian Wingless Sprint Racing felt it had no choice but to postpone its Australian championship, due to be held in Murray Bridge on February 26-27.

AWSR has every intention of running the event at a later date, to be advised.

“Murray Bridge Speedway has been proactive in ensuring that our speedway venue was open as soon as viable during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we have been fortunate enough to be able to run the majority of our race meetings that were scheduled this season in some format or another,” venue administrator Darren Shaddock said.

“We were fully committed to hosting the three Australian championships – wingless sprints, 360 sprintcars and modlites – that our venue was fortunate enough to be awarded this season.

“But we always knew, with the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 virus, that an outbreak may occur at any given time and there was always going to be a risk that any of the events may be postponed or cancelled.

“Unfortunately in this instance that is exactly what has happened.”

The SA Wingless Sprint Title originally planned as a two-night event for February 19 and 20 will still go ahead, but on one night only: Saturday, February 20.

The Wingless Sprints 60-Lapper which was scheduled for the March long weekend will come forward a weekend and replace the postponed Australian Wingless Sprint Championship on Saturday, February 27.

The annual Ross Wright Memorial for sprintcars will run as a stand-alone race on Saturday, March 6.

“While these changes are not ideal, we understand that many wingless sprint teams had already committed to running at our venue on these dates, and hope that they keep their plans in place,” Mr Shaddock said.

“We would still love to see them here and still want to see as many cars out on the track as possible.”

• More information: www.murraybridgespeedway.com/schedule.

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