OPPORTUNITY LOST

Carmarthen’s hopes of introducing the sport to a wider audience was lost last week when the annual show at the Carmarthen Showground fell foul of the wet summer.

The show last Thursday was due to attract some 40,000 pIus visitors over the two days and on the Thursday morning, over 6,000 were reported to be milling around the Showground.

Unfortunately, the rains then hit West Wales with a vengeance and the speedway track was flooded, with a practice session/display planned for 6 pm having to be called off, much to the disbelief of Dragons chairman Nigel Meakins.

“I don’t know what we’ve done to have such bad luck. I was hoping the noise of the bikes would have attracted the people in to watch and hopefully they’d have liked what they saw and come back to watch us on a race-day but this was not to be,” he said.

‘A lot of people wandered in early in the day before the rain started to fall and asked a lot of questions about the speedway. I thought what a great PR exercise this was going to be. We have tried everything we can to attract fans but still are behind what we need.

“The experiment of trying a Saturday was a disaster with just over 200 people in — although our Speedway Riders’ Benevolent Fund collection was £200 — so it’s back to Sunday for our race-day although we do have another Saturday in the fixtures for October 5. That’s when we have our Welsh clash with Newport but we expect a healthy crowd that day.”

With new signings Corey Blackman and Matthew Cross settling in to the Dragons side, the club added another former Somerset rider in Andy Carfield to their squad last week.

The tall Bristolian scored paid four on his debut at Mildenhall on Sunday and gives the Dragons another option with a place in the Conference Trophy Final on the cards.

The Dragons were unlucky not to snatch a win at West Row, going down narrowly by 45-44 when Matt Cross lost a vital third spot in Heat 15 when Wayne Broadhurst baulked him, causing him to drift out wide with Darren Andrews nipping past.