NEWS: 3 Bikes stolen during British Championships weekend

The British Championships weekend was marred by the theft on Sunday evening of 3 cycle speedway bikes belonging to Leon Penketh, Gavin Wheeler (pictured above racing for Poole) and George Whale. David Makepeace has sent in the following statement:

“Taking the tarnish off a little ,of what was otherwise a fantastic weekend of our great sport was the overnight theft from a vehicle of three Archie MK5 bikes belonging to the Horspath (Southampton) veteran Gavin Wheeler – who had successfully qualified for the Open final as well as competing the Vets final on Monday, Gavin’s nephew George Whale of Southampton who had ridden to joint 4th in the Under 14 championship at Wednesfield on Saturday and Leon Penketh of Southampton newly acquired bike (picked up just the prior weekend) – who as well as joint 5th in the Juniors, competed in his first senior event in the Open semis and finished runner-up in the Under 16 final on Monday despite the sickening news on the morning of the final.

“Any assistance in the recovery would, of course, be greatly appreciated and thank you to everyone sharing the posts highlighting the missing bikes on Socials, especially Steve Mullinder with a wonderfully composed locally targeted appeal and Georgia Burt for making additional CCTV enquiries – both of the Wednesfield club highlighting how we really a big yet close-knit family in our sport.

“You never know they could be recovered. If not it won’t be through the lack of trying and we now have another three racers appealing for a Archie Wilkinson Mk5 to purchase – so if anyone has a special ‘MK5 magic-tree’ or just one not being put to it’s natural use please contact David Makepeace via DM or email dmake1@hotmail.com”