McConnell wins in Dawson creek BC!!

13th March 2009. 1st Place: Shawn McConnell. 2nd Place: James Mann. 3rd Place: Anthony Barlow.

With the series moving across the border to Canada for the very first time, it was unfortunate that with the British League based Riders, Paul Cooper & Ben Hopwood having returned to the UK for the start of their conventional speedway season, the field was further depleted by the non-appearance of 3 Californian based riders including the championship leader Charlie Venegas along with Kelly Kerrigan and Eddie Martinez.However the expectant crowd, approaching 2000 spectators witnessed some superb racing including a couple of highly competitive Challenge races interspersed with the main qualifying heats.Heat 1 saw Shawn McConnell show why he is such a master at speedway racing by showing Anthony Barlow the way home collecting a valuable 3 points in the process while at the back, Nathan Siegel experienced the difficulty of changing from 4 wheels to 2 by falling heavily on the ice, although the race proceeded to the end.Heat 2 saw a good scrap between the now domiciled Brits of James Mann & David Meldrum in which Mann came out on top.The 2nd round of qualifiers saw Barlow getting the better of Meldrum and McConnell beating Mann which meant that McConnell, Mann & Barlow went through to the Main Final, leaving Meldrum to do battle in the Last Chance for his place on the back row in the Main Final. Somewhat surprisingly Ben Warburton gaining in confidence as the series progresses out fought Meldrum to take only his 2nd heat win during the Championship.The 6 lap Final was won from pole position by the evergreen Shawn “Mad Dog” McConnell with James Mann having a good race to hold off the strong challenge of Barlow, while Meldrum took a 4th place.As a consequence Barlow edged a little closer to the Series Leader Venegas, but will surely be disappointed not to have taken maximum points
Several of the riders in this series have riden at Welland including Greg Starcevic.