WITH the running of the 8th annual Tyson Perez Memorial at Borderline Speedway this Saturday night the new generation of hard charging All Stars get to pay tribute to “Spud” and compete in his honour.
“Spud died almost eight year’s ago and our young guns were only in primary school at the time, but that will not matter as they come out to run the event in his honour,” promoter Mandy Searle said.
“They know how to wheel a sprintcar around and Spud would have been very impressed with that.”
Locally, two young cousins in Jack Gartner and Ben Gartner both live in Penola and have a long history in speedway racing.
Both ran Juniors to start their dirt tack careers and both stepped up straight into 360 Sprintcars.
At 20 years of age Jack is in the SA16 car and currently running in eighth overall in the All Star series.
Jack recently competed at the prestigious World Series Sprintcars round at Borderline Speedway over the Christmas period.
Not to be outdone by his older cousin, 17 year old Ben also races with the All Stars.
Ben drives the SA32 car and also ran with WSS at the Borderline.
Both are hard chargers.
Second generation racer Scott Enderl is another regular to the series from the South East.
The 22 year old competes in the SA11 car and while he probably never met Perez his father Karl would have known him well through his racing career.
“It is really special to have the younger racers for this show,” Searle said.
“Spud always encouraged new competitors and new blood into the sport.
“He would get a real kick out of it to have these guys racing in his honour.”
