The 2026 Ben Fund Bonanza meeting will be staged at Glasgow on 28th March at 6pm. The annual announcement of one of the most important meetings in the calendar is eagerly awaited around the country, and this is the second time that Glasgow’s Allied Ashfield Stadium will have held the Bonanza. By next March it will be nine years since their first staging in 2017, won by Richard Lawson.
Glasgow promoter Alan Dick explained how the West of Scotland club came to step up again for the Ben Fund. “We’re delighted to be having it. We had said to Paul at the end of last season that if he was looking for a track, we’d be willing to stage it at the start of the season. He said that there were one or two clubs who had expressed something similar, and it would be up to the Trustees to make the final decision.
“So when he phoned to say that the Trustees would like it to come to Glasgow this year for a second time, we were really up for it. It will almost certainly be our first meeting of the season.
“Our normal Saturday night start time would be 7pm but I think Paul wants to start a bit earlier, at 6pm. It lets people travelling from say the north of England and elsewhere get home a wee bit earlier. Should be over by 9pm.”
Glasgow fans nowadays are well used to having big events at their track. “We’ve got an FIM qualifier again in May. I think the pits area and the stadium lends itself to a good atmosphere for this type of meeting.”
The first staging of the Bonanza was in 2009 at Sheffield, and next year’s will be the 16th staging with 2018 and 2021 being the missing years when plans were thwarted. Glasgow are the fourth club to take on the Bonanza for the second time, the others being Leicester, King’s Lynn and Scunthorpe.
For sure every club will have had riders who had cause to be grateful for the generosity of the Ben Fund. Amongst Glasgow riders of the past for example Ulrich Ostergaard and Lewis Kerr come to mind, and from the current squad Kyle Howarth. Alan Dick is in no doubt of the importance of the Fund.
“It’s absolutely crucial. The fans at Glasgow are very generous as are other tracks in their annual collection, and they know the money goes to riders who are injured. Every penny raised will go to the fund, Glasgow are not taking this meeting to make a penny out of it. Everything that we raise on the day other than some expenses such as ambulance, tyres etc. will go to the Ben Fund.
“I’m not sure that any other country has an equivalent to the Ben Fund. Perhaps it should be a lead to these other countries. Certainly the riders are very appreciative of it.”
Few stadia have seen as many recent changes as Ashfield. “I don’t think there’s anything new at the stadium since last season, it will be much as it has been for last season. But we’ve certainly got the new Grandstand on the third bend which holds an extra 400 people, that’s only been up a year and a bit now, so some fans might not have seen that. Our seating capacity is now 800 between the two areas, so fans can get a seat.
“Certainly the Facennas have done a magnificent job from the days when Stewart Dickson and I had it. Back then we had to rent it from the football club and we were not at liberty to make any changes. Now the Facennas own the stadium, and the changes are down to them. We’ve gone from a basic old football stadium to a fairly modern stadium, although our old stand is still the same. Our capacity is now just under 3,000.”
“We’re looking forward to having the Bonanza again, everybody at Glasgow is.”
Words by Mike Hunter – Speedway Ben Fund – Image Courtesy of Speedway Ben Fund
