Tuesday January 16, 2018 at 2:36pm
The annual ACU Awards presentations were held last weekend at the prestigious National Motorcycle Museum Conference Centre at Solihull, West Midlands, where over 450 guests attended a ‘black tie event’, representing all disciplines of motorcycle sport. Earlier in the day, Track Racing had a particularly high profile with current European and British Masters Grass Track Champion James Shanes opening the Youth Awards by riding his title winning motorcycle into the room of 200 guests and then presenting the Youth Awards to the best of British talent in Track Racing and Speedway. In the evening James Shanes was back on stage, but this time it was his turn to be presented with two awards by ACU Track Racing Chairman Dickie Staff. The first was in recognition of winning the FIM European Grass Track Championship and the other was for his third successful defence of the ACU British Masters title. Speedway’s Robert Lambert was also in attendance to collect the FIM Europe Under 19 and Under 21 Speedway Championship medals together with his British Under 21 Speedway title. Not to be upstaged, young Grass Track and Speedway rider Luke Harris collected the prestigious Pinhard Trophy as the best Under 21 year old competing in ACU events. Luke was also presented with his British Upright Grass Track Championship trophy and winners medal which signified a fantastic year for the youngster. ACU Track Racing Chairman Dickie Staff commented ‘this year’s ACU Awards presentation was yet again a fantastic event which celebrated the achievement and success of British riders competing in championship events - not only in England but across the world. It was good to see a number of people representing the Speedway world at the event, and it would be wonderful to see if we can build further on this for next year’s ACU presentations’