ABOUT US

About Lismore Speedway

WHEN it comes to Castrol Lismore Speedway, it’s regarded as the Home of Champions, and you only look over the long list of local standout drivers who have competed over the 54-year history of the Lismore Showground venue to understand why.
Lismore Speedway was officially opened by the Member for Lismore Mr R.B. Duncan, MLA on the Saturday night of November 22 in 1969, and it quickly went on to build up the reputation as one of Australia’s most popular speedway tracks, which is a reputation that it carries through to this day.
Lismore Speedway’s first promoters were Queensland businessman Dutton Stibbard and Neil Mansell in 1969. Prior to the track’s official opening, there were a handful of race meetings held around the Lismore Showground venue, which included classes such as Solos and Speedcars, but those attempts only took place on a couple of occasions.
Leading into the Lismore Speedway official opening, the promoters, along with the support from the Lismore Automobile Club, had to make various improvements, such as replacing the safety fence, before the track was officially signed off by the police to begin running race meetings.

In the early years of Lismore Speedway, the main classes they ran during race meetings were A, B and C Grade Sedans, and they provided plenty of entertainment for the local speedway supporters.
After a handful of seasons running Lismore Speedway together as co-promoters Stibbard and Mansell parted ways, with Stibbard going out on his own as the sole promoter, which he managed to do up until the 1976-77 season, when he handed the promotional reigns over to Peter Croke, who was a businessman from the north coast and Grenville Anderson’s car owner.
Following Croke stepping away the promoter duties in the early 1980s, most of the next decade saw numerous promotional consortium teams, with Col Bennett, Kevin Dalton, George Knott, Lou Usher and Bert Usher joining forces. After a season, Knott decided to move away from the promotional game.
By the time the middle of the 1980s came around, Lou and Bert Usher remained in the promotional game, but it saw local sedan racers Steve Robinson and Nev Pezzutti as the latest additions to the Lismore Speedway promotional group with the Ushers. A year after teaming up, Bert Usher moved away from the pressures of being a promoter, and it left Lou Usher, Robinson and Pezzutti to operate the track.

Veteran promoter Larry Nelson picked up the Lismore Speedway promotion role for much of the early 1990s, before local Warren King came into the fold as the promoter in the mid-1990s and then Ben Hall became the promoter in the late 1990s. In the early 2000s, Greg Coombes took over the promoter duties up until the venue was sold to another veteran promoter in Sydney’s David Lander heading into the 2007-08 season, which was a position he held up until the conclusion of the 2021-22 season and gave him the honour of currently being the longest ever promoter at Lismore Speedway with running a total of 13 consecutive seasons.
After retiring from the speedway promotion game during the off 2022 off season, Lander sold Lismore Speedway to the husband-and-wife duo of Kim and Mick Sauer. The Sauers, from nearby Pottsville, have injected new life into Lismore Speedway during their first season in 2022-23 with consistently large crowds and competitor numbers, and it led to the track picking up the Speedway Australia’s Most Improved track award at their annual awards night.
To say that Lismore Speedway has a bright future ahead is quite the understatement, especially with Kim and Mick Sauer, who are well supported with a great crew around them, at the promotional helm.

Over 50 plus years of Lismore Speedway operating, V8 Dirt Modifieds and Super Sedans have been the leading classes, with the venue hosting numerous Australian Titles for both classes. When it comes to Australian Titles in V8 Dirt Modifieds, local competitors have featured heavily in the winner’s circle with Stuart Herne, Steve and Mark Robinson, Andrew Pezzutti and Geoff Russell. In the Super Sedan ranks, the local drivers over the years, such as Grenville and Adrian Anderson, John Leslight, Paul O’Neill, Nev Pezzutti, Max Maher, Tania Smith, have stood tall on the national scene. On an International front, American sedan racer visitors include the likes of Scott Bloomquist, Jack Hewitt, Steve Francis, Charlie Swartz, John Soares, Ed Wilbur and Johnny Pearson, while in the V8 Dirt Modifieds, international visitors consist of American talents in Kenny Brighthill, Bob McCreadie, Tim Fuller, Jimmy Phelps and Gary Tomkins.
Apart from Super Sedans, there has been plenty of local talent in Modified Sedans, such as Bob and Greg Worling, Jason Jolley and Max Clarke, who have flown the flag high for Lismore at different periods over the past three decades.

Speaking of Australian Titles, the Lismore Speedway have hosted Australian Titles for V8 Dirt Modifieds, Super Sedans, Modified Sedans, Speedcars, AMCA Nationals, Compact Speedcars, Formula 500s and Street Stockers.
One of the biggest events on the calendar for Lismore Speedway is the East Coast Grand Nationals for Super Sedans, along with USA VS Australia test matches and NSW VS Queensland state matches for Super Sedans. There have also been 50 and 100 Lapper events for Super Sedans fought out at Lismore Speedway.
Sprintcar race meetings have been held at Lismore Speedway on a sporadic basis since the early 1980s, and the biggest events to come to the venue were World Series Sprintcar Championship rounds, where he first World Series round battled out in the late 1980s, before returning to Lismore Speedway in the early 2000s and then most recently, the 2019-20 season being the last time the track hosted a round.
In the 2014-15 season, a World Midget Championship round was held at Lismore Speedway, and it saw some of the world’s best Midget drivers put on a sensational show from beginning to end. The drivers in the field included Americans Bryan Clauson (RIP), Christopher Bell, Rico Abreu, Darren Hagen, and Zach Daum, while the New Zealand stars were Michael Pickens, Brad Mosen and Hayden Williams.

Although Lismore Speedway has been mainly a sedan track, they have hosted major speedway Solo bike events, such as the International Series 500 and Ivan Mauger Series, and various Sidecar events. In fact, during the 1979-80 season, two-time World Speedway Champion (1981 and 1982) Bruce Penhall (USA) competed at Lismore Speedway.
Apart from hosting speedway events, the Showground is used for non-racing events such as markets and the regional show. Over the years, the showground has hosted special events, such as a baseball game in 1972 and even a celebrity cricket match in 1994.
It’s well known that the Lismore area has been hit by massive floods over the past decade, and in 2018, the entire Lismore Speedway was flooded, and the same thing occurred four years later in 2022. Like the whole Lismore community, the Lismore Speedway track bounced back bigger and better, as it continues its reputation as one of Lismore’s most popular sporting forms of local entertainment.
After operating for over 50 years on a continual basis, Castrol Lismore Speedway prides itself on its history, and it’s that history that is going to go a long way towards ensuring the track is operating for another 50 years.