Sports

Clubs competing are Centenary from Queensland, Grafton, Grafton High School, Lower Clarence, Manning River, Murwillumbah, South Grafton High School, and Tweed.

In all 56 athletes are involved covering 113 entries, 47 events and 173 seats. The Grafton course accommodates 9 lanes. Races are over 1000M and 2000M.

The most popular events are the Men’s Masters Handicap Single Scull with 8 entries. These rowers will be competing for the Greg Thompson Memorial Trophy which goes to the rower with the fastest time. The event is over 1000M. The Men’s Handicap Single Scull has drawn 12 entries while the corresponding Women’s event has attracted 10 entries, each over 1000M. Six races will be conducted over 2000M. Three of them involve Under 17 Women and Men’s single scull events and one Women’s double scull event.

SPORTS RESULTS

1st place, in the seniors competition, went to Lloyd Brown with 20 Bream, 2 Sweetlip, 2 Drummer, 1 Groper and a Wrasse . 2nd place, in the seniors competition, went to Nick Haynes with 8 Flathead and 3 Bream. 3rd place, in the seniors competition, went to Dan Martin with 5 Flathead and 1 Bream. 3 Juniors nominated with Alice Brotherson winning her 2nd outing for the year, in the junior competition. Alice caught 7 nice Luderick. She is now on a 45 point handicap for the last outing of the year. Jensen Haynes and Hugh Brotherson also weighed fsh in but didn’t break their handicaps.

The next Club outing will be held on 10/11 December.

The NSW Veterans Over 65’s cricket championships are being held in Lismore, Ballina and Lennox Head during the week commencing 12th December, with 10 teams from across NSW joining the local Lismore Emerging Greys (LEGs) cricket team in competition.

The Championships will consist of 2 Divisions, with the 8 teams in Div 1 playing a 40 overs per team competition, while the 3 Div 2 teams will play a 25 overs per team competition, with 2 matches each day.

Matches will be played on the Monday, Tuesday and Thursday at Oakes Oval, Mortimer Oval and Neilson Oval in Lismore and Fripp Oval in Ballina and Megan Cresc. in Lennox Head, commencing at 10.00 am each day.

This is the 2nd NSW O/65s championships and LEGs are the current joint trophy holder with Port Jackson from Sydney.

Veterans Cricket started with only an Over 60s competition, but the rapid growth has led to O/40s, O/50s, O/55s, O/60s, O65s and O/70s tournaments at regional. State and National levels.

LEGs President, Roger Boyd said ‘It will be great for the local area to have many visitors supporting local businesses, and thanked Lismore and Ballina Councils for their enthusiastic support for the carnival’. ‘It refects the growing trend of our older generations living a healthy and active lifestyle’ he added.

THE 2022-23 season blasted into action for Hessions Auto Parts Grafton Speedway on Saturday night, and it saw a healthy crowd entertained by plenty of close and exciting racing action from beginning to end.

Headlining the action were the popular V8 Dirt Modifeds and the standout driver of the night was youngster Seiton Connor-Young who took out the feature-race spoils in impressive fashion.

After starting from pole position for the feature race, Connor-Young, from nearby Lismore, managed to move into the lead from the outset, and it was a position he didn’t relent all the way through to the fall of chequered fag. Despite leading the whole race, it certainly wasn’t easy for the newcomer with less than 12 months experience in V8 Dirt Modifeds to his name, as he had to fght off the challenges from fve-time Australian Champion Kevin Britten during the opening 10 laps. Unfortunately, Britten, who had travelled down from Brisbane in Queensland, was forced to the infeld, after he damaged his right-rear suspension following him hitting the cushion of the track wrong.

With Britten now out of the picture, Connor-Young was unchallenged for the remainder of the 25-lap distance and went on to win by a comfortable margin. Joining Connor-Young on the podium were fellow youngsters in locals Taylah Firth and Luke Dunn in second and third place respectively. For Firth, this was by far her best ever performance in a V8 Dirt Modifed and she was rapt of the front row in the feature race and went on to make the most of the starting spot by taking the lead immediately. From there, Dicker controlled the pace throughout the 15-lap journey, and he went on to

score a confdence-boosting victory.

At the fall of the chequered fag, Dicker defeated Andrew Seery in second and Sydneybased youngster Brayden Shute in third. Sydneysiders Bailey Goodwin and Tyson Williams completed the top-fve fnishes.

Current NSW Champion Jacob Jolley was the form driver leading into the Wingless Sprint feature race after being the highest point scorer from the heat-race action. Being the highest point scorer, Jolley drew position 8 in the inversion and had to start from position eight. In the feature race, Jolley was making his way

forward, before he suffered a mechanical failure on lap six and crashed out of contention in spectacular fashion.

In the support classes, the feature-race wins were shared between Paul Reeves (AMCA Nationals) who proved too good for Darren Miller and Brett Robotham, Queenslander Matt Gordon (Legend Cars) was able to down Rieley Fisher and Jackson Tomkins, David Putsey (RSA Street Stockers) who defeated Brendan Hayes and Greg Dickinson, Nelson Mooney (RSA Four Cylinder Sedans) who outpaced Nathan Harper and David Putsey, and Jaiden Santin (SSA Junior Sedans) fnished ahead of Jeremy Wade and Alisha Payne.

The next Grafton Speedway race meeting on the 2022-23 season calendar is going to be held on December 10, featuring the Late Models and the NSW Title for Modlites. The support classes will consist of RSA Street Stockers, Production Sedans and Junior Sedans. Grafton Speedway would like to thank Hessions Auto Parts for their support throughout the 2022-23 season. Based in Grafton, along with their nearby Coffs Harbour location, Hessions Auto Parts stock a wide range of parts and accessories at competitive prices.

To fnd out more about Hessions Auto Parts, contact them on 0266 423 085 (Grafton) and 0256 456 361 (Coffs Harbour) or visit their website at hessionsautoparts. com.au.

to come away with a podium fnish on home soil.

Behind the podium fnishes in fourth was another local in Andrew Firth, while the topfve fnishes were rounded out by rookie V8 Dirt Modifed racer Brock Armstrong.

A large feld of Wingless Sprints converged on Grafton Speedway, and it was Sydney’s Jamie Dicker who drove a faultless race to claim the feature-race spoils. Dicker had started from the outside