NEWS: British Youth and Junior League changes

British Youth and Junior League coordinator, Ross Mee, has written to clubs highlighting some new changes and improvements to the British Youth and Junior League, one of British Cycle Speedway’s most prized assets in our opinion.

Ross’ email said:

Whilst the BYJL was still well supported and enjoyed by all those who took part in 2014, it cannot be denied that the numbers entering in the last few years have gradually declined. Whilst we appreciate that it requires a good deal of time and commitment from parents in particular to travel to all the rounds, there was also a feeling that we needed to make some changes to the structure of the competition to make it more attractive to the riders. With this in mind my predecessor Rob Gifkins and myself came up with a number of changes for 2015, the main aims of which was to make participation in the National rounds more open and also encourage greater support by teams with a new look team competition.

The staging of the World Championship has also meant a rescheduling of the National rounds, with a June start and 4 week cycle rather than the normal 3 week cycle. We have also for this year only changed the usual order of the rounds so the Eastern round was not being held the weekend before that region was hosting the National Championships. Hopefully all this will help with the travelling.

That’s what we’ve done… Now I’d hope that the Clubs will promote the competition to your riders, encourage those who used to take part to do so again this year and explain to new riders what the competition is all about. The change to the qualification and national scoring mean that new riders can join mid-season without being disadvantaged as before, but riders (and parents) need the competition explaining to them and need encouraging to take part. Hopefully the changes to the scoring in the team competition and the introduction of a team competition in each age group open to all teams will encourage Clubs to again bring riders in greater numbers to the National rounds.

The competition is a great way for junior riders to compete against riders from all over the country and ride on a number of different tracks – if you can encourage them to turn out, then myself and the regional co-ordinators will do our best to ensure that they enjoy some good racing!

To all those Clubs hosting a round, whether it is regional or national – thanks.

The changes to the competition are detailed below – unfortunately an error by the printer meant that the BYJL section in the Regulations was virtually a re-print of 2014, so despite what you may have read there, these are the changes for 2015. I believe Paul West will be circulating a revised version of the Regulations to remove any doubt.

The Under 16 age group has been replaced by an Under 17 age group – this is open to anyone who is born on or after 1 January 1998. So anyone who was eligible for the Under 16s last year can continue to compete in the BYJL this year.

(We are not re-introducing the Under 18 age group, although this may be considered for future years if there is the demand for it)

Whilst we would encourage girls to compete in the  Under 12s, if there are any who would prefer to compete in the girls competition we will allow that, although they will clearly be at a disadvantage

Qualification for the National Rounds is now open to any rider who has ridden in two Regional rounds

Points scored in the Regional Rounds will no longer be carried forward into the National Rounds

The scoring for the Club Competition National Rounds has been revised as follows;

The 8 qualifying teams will now be awarded points for their relative performance in each age group in each round.  The team with the highest total score of the participating teams in an age category will be awarded one point, with the remaining teams receiving points in ascending order to 8 points for the 8th place team. A team with no riders in a category will automatically score 8 points. These points will be added together over the four rounds with the winner being the team with the fewest points overall.

We are also introducing a new Club competition to run aside this to determine the winning Club in each of the age categories. Any Club which competes in all four National rounds in an age category will be eligible for this, not just those in the main Club Championship, with the scoring again being 1 point for the winner, and upwards. The Club with the fewest points overall in each age group will be the winner of that group.

Regional Rounds are on:

April 11, April 25, May 16 and June 6 – entry fee is £1.50 for BC licence holders ( £1.50 extra for day licence if required)

National Rounds: – entry fee is £3 for BC licence holders ( £1.50 extra for day licence if required)

June 27 – Poole

July 25 – Hethersett

August 22 – Bury

September  19 – Wednesfield