Shorttrack cracker

British Shorttrack champion Lee Complin defeated an array of motorcycling greats in the Christmas Cracker Shorttrack meeting at Scunthorpe Speedway last Saturday.

He lost just one race all afternoon in the American-style drittrack race meeting, to Peter Boast, but his closest challengers in the final were Cumbrian speedway rider Jonathan Bethell and Yorkshire road racer Dijon Compton who pushed him all the way to join him on the podium.

A large crowd of over 2,000 saw some excellent racing whilst one of the big draws, Neil Hodgson, the 2003 World Superbike Champion, impressed on his Short Track debut by claiming sixth in the 40-rider field.

Eleven-time TT winner John McGuinness just failed to make the 12-rider final whilst Steve Plater performed well before two crashes in his final qualifiying ride kept him out of the semi-finals.

Race organiser Boast finished fourth after falling in the semi-final and having to come from the back of the grid in the final.

For the winner, 22-year-old Complin, who hails from Cowling, West Yorkshire, it marked the end of a very successful year.

After giving up a promising speedway career a few years ago he turned to Shorttrack racing in 2006 claiimed the British title in his ‘rookie’ season, aboard a works CCM 450cc machine

The 2007 Shorttrack UK championship blasts into action at King’s Lynn in April.

Results

1 Lee Complin,

2 Jonathan Bethell,

3 Dijon Compton,

4 Peter Boast,

5 Tim Greig,

6 Neil Hodgson,

7 Victor Bull,

8 Darren Pearson,

9 Paul Baldwin,

10 Steve Hall,

11 Andy Mitchell,