Speedway is coming home (From Dudley News)

• "Awesome news. Cradley speedway was the towns best supported and most successful sports team before its closure. 30,000+ signed a petition to try to save Dudley Wood. The last time there was hope of a site for a new track we had support from all over Europe, the US, Canada and Australia.
  
  Cradley Heath Speedway put The Black Country on the map and attracted some of the sports most successful and best know stars, including multiple World Champions (indeed current World Champion - Greg Hancock - started his career with the Heathens back in 1989 and recently appeared at a sell-out event in the area when spending an evening chatting with fans and remembering 'the good old days'), to ride for it and its dedicated fans.
  
  Speedway is a fantastic family sport attracting fans from a broad age range - babies to OAPs. Loyal to a fault but respectful of other clubs and their fans speedway does not need a Police presence to operate, unlike most mainstream sports.
  
  There are already riders from the local area making their mark and working hard towards a long term future as a professional speedway rider. Indeed 18 year old's Tom Perry (British U21 Grasstrack Champion or 2nd in the recent British Speedway U21 Championships) and Ashley Morris both ride come from Wolverhampton and are riding for the Dudley Heathens in the sports National League. They're just two of a number of teenagers handed an opportunity by the Heathens and they're grabbing it with both hands as they start their professional career as sportsmen racing in front of the league's biggest crowds (official). If kids want to ride bikes off road then why not encourage them to take up the sport and ride as a professional sportsman? Perhaps one of them, or even more, could follow in the tyre tracks of many before them and go all the way to the top and become a World Champion.
  
  Since riding at our adopted Monmore Green Stadium home in Wolverhampton the Dudley Heathens have put the Dudley name back on the sporting map and have already had success as a club and for some of the riders on an individual basis. Former Heathens rider and former world champion Jan O Pedersen has, this year, relocated himself and his family back to the Dudley area to help the current Heathens riders as they make their way in the sport. That's how big an impression the club and the sport made on him when he rode for the club in the 80's and 90's - his racing career sadly cut short by injury in '92 as reigning World Champion.
  
  Illegal off road riding riding that is a danger to themselves, other members of the public, difficult to control and requires a Police response or a professional sports club bringing some pride and sporting success back to the region? This is a 'no-brainer'. C'mon Dudley Council - make this happen!"
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