Top 10 rising stars in the SA speedway competition to look out for in 2025
They’re young, determined, resilient and hugely talented. Check out SA’s rising speedway stars in action on the track.
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They are SA’s very own rising speedway stars, racing their way to competition glory.
From twin sisters to young men following in their parents’ footsteps, these up-and-coming guns are taking the sport by storm all over the state.
Here, we take an in-depth look at those making their mark on the bitumen – taking out trophies and accolades with a point to prove to their adult rivals.
The Pitcher sisters
Division: Wingless
Age: Sharni and Tamika are 22; Kirra-Lee is 19
Town: Murray Bridge
For South Australia’s speedway racing sisters – the Pitchers – the high-octane motorsport is their family’s way of life.
Twins Sharni and Tamika, 22, and younger sister Kirra-Lee, 19, are third-generation racers, taking after their late grandfather, Peter “Little Foss” Merritt, and father Michael Pitcher.
“I’ve been going since I was six weeks old, so I’ve always been around it,” Sharni said.
“I just remember one day saying to my dad, ‘I’m gonna race one of these’, and all along he was like, ‘no you’re not’. And then for my tenth birthday he bought me and Tamika a car.”
There were few other 10-year-old girls among their competitors.
“It’s definitely a male-oriented sport,” Sharni said. “There was me and Tamika, and then maybe a couple of other girls.
“But over the years it’s been great seeing more females entering the sport.”
Sharni is a former Murray Bridge Speedway junior track champion and junior club person of the year.
She found herself on the podium in a South Australian championship as a junior, before joining the seniors at 18.
She said racing with her sisters has been “so much fun”.
“Being able to do it as a family makes such a difference. It’s such a family sport for us,” Sharni said.
The trio once placed first (Tamika), second (Sharni) and third (Kirra-Lee) in a Murray Bridge race in 2018.
Tamika remembered an occasion when eight of their family members, including cousins and second cousins, raced together, making up “half the field, if not more than half”.
“It’s what we do as a family, it’s what keeps us all together,” Tamika said. “I never knew my second cousins up until I started racing.”
Tamika finished in the top 10 in her first season of wingless, but took a break this season due to work commitments.
Kirra-Lee, the youngster of the trio, was seven when her sisters started racing.
Not to be left out, she practised driving around the paddock at seven with her dad, before hitting the speedway track when she turned 10.
“I’m very proud, especially with Sharni and Tamika being quite competitive and doing well,” Kirra-Lee said.
“Especially jumping into the wingless, having the three of us out there.
“Unfortunately, you just don’t see as many girls move up into the senior classes.
“When people find out, ‘Oh, you race?’’ then I always pull the, ‘oh yeah, so do my two sisters’.
“And they’re like, ‘there’s three girls that race?’ I’m like, ‘yeah, it’s pretty cool’.”
Her speedway goal is “just being competitive, being able to feel confident in the car, and one day hopefully stick it to my sisters”.
Brad Vaughan
Division: Wingless
Age: 20
Town: Angaston
Horsham Classic 2023 wingless sprint winner Brad “Bard” Vaughan says he was “probably always destined to be a speedway driver”.
Like many racers on The Advertiser’s list, he followed in his family’s footsteps, having grown up surrounded by the sport.
His father, Steve Vaughan, raced speedway for more than 30 years and was described in 2019 as “one of the quickest late-model drivers in South Australia” by the South Australian Late Model Association.
Brad’s goal is to “put a wing on it” to compete in sprint car racing at the Australian level, which he sees as “the pinnacle of speedway”.
As his car was rolling over at a Murray Bridge club event in April, his only thought was: “Hopefully it doesn’t damage the car.”
“It’s never really an issue of whether I get hurt; it’s more just an issue of whether it hurts the wallet,” Brad said.
“Unfortunately crashes are part of racing, particularly speedway. You just sort of brush it off, get out and fix the car and go again.”
He needs to protect the wallet to achieve his dream of putting a wing on it, as sprint car racing is more expensive than wingless.
Brad is better known as a professional circuit racer, describing speedway as his “summer sport”.
He is the 2022 Dunlop Super3 Series champion and won Super2 races at Sandown in December 2024.
Through his career across circuit and speedway, he has collected more than 2200 followers on Facebook and 1500 on Instagram, with one online fan recently predicting Brad is “going right to the top” as a circuit driver.
Outside of racing, he drives a BMW 120i.
Demi Jennings
Division: Junior Sedans
Age: 16
Town: Mount Gambier
Demi Jennings has picked up impressive wins despite only beginning the sport in March 2023, including a feature win at Mount Gambier Borderline Speedway in November and another at the Junior Sedan Southern Showdown in Renmark in December.
But it’s not about winning for the high-schooler.
Demi said the highlight of her speedway racing career was a sick overtaking manoeuvre she pulled off at the Renmark event in December, where she squeezed through two cars as she came off the first corner.
Her advice to new young racers is not to expect to win straight away. “Just look at it more as a fun thing,” she said.
“It’s a lot of fun. Everybody’s very friendly, and everybody just wants to help you out.”
Demi was inspired to try the sport by her second cousin, 15-year-old Violet Thorne from Compton, another of the state’s top up-and-coming speedway racers.
“When she did it, I saw her as a familiar face there and I could do it too,” Demi said.
The cousins are “definitely” competitive with each other, but the sport has brought them closer.
Demi comes from speedway royalty, with no shortage of family members in the sport.
Her father, Mark Jennings, is an Australian Street Stocks champion and has won South Australian state titles.
Her paternal grandfather, Cary Jennings, is president of Mount Gambier Speedway, and her maternal grandfather Robert Holberton was also a speedway racer.
Her mother, Natalie Jennings, said the family thought Demi was not interested in speedway racing, as she pursued dance and netball.
“Then one day, she decided she wanted to give it a go, so we went, ‘yep, let’s do it’,” Natalie said.
Jayden Garner
Division: Junior Sedans
Age: 16
Town: Millicent
Jayden Garner has embraced speedway with gusto after starting just one year ago, quickly earning a spot in the Junior Sedans Top Stars division.
He cut his teeth as a dirt-circuit racer, beginning at age 11 at the Apsley track where his father Joey Garner raced.
Jayden said he started in C-grade, racing adults in a Corolla, before building his own BA Falcon with his dad.
He worked his way up to A-grade with the Falcon, where he came second to his dad in a race.
“And then dad thought, that I need to go different, go a bit better. And so then he bought me a speedway car,” Jayden recounted.
“It was a little bit different, because I’d never really driven a front-wheel drive car.”
But once he got the hang of it, he picked up some wins and soon stepped up to the Top Stars junior division.
He won his first Top Stars at Renmark in March 2023 and has earned 39 podiums across Junior Sedans events.
“I like that everyone gets along. It’s sort of like another family at Speedway,” Jayden said.
“Pretty much everyone’s mates, even though they might be a bit rough on the track every now and again.”
His speedway goal is to win a title at least once.
“And I would like to eventually go and race Supercars – would be pretty cool,” he said.
Mitch Rigney
Division: Super Sedans
Age: 19
Town: Port Adelaide
Mitch Rigney remains one of the sport’s most promising young talents after recovering from a traumatic brain injury he sustained in 2023, which put him into a 17-day induced coma.
“I just wanted to get back into a car when I woke up,” he said.
In September 2023, Mitch’s father, Marcus Rigney told The Advertiser a collision between two race car wheels during a race essentially catapulted Mitch into a fence at Darwin’s Northline Speedway in August, causing a substantial head injury.
“His helmet did hit the roll cage … but if you stop at a considerable amount of force it almost scrambles the brain, it shakes it like a milkshake,” Mr Rigney said.
“It created hundreds of tiny little brain bleeds all through Mitchell’s brain.”
Mitch’s parents were told to prepare for a bleak outcome, but their son defied the odds in a remarkable recovery through physiotherapy.
Mitch started racing again in 2024 and bought his own race car in July.
He said his goal is to win an Australian title and to race for as long as he can.
Before his injury, he placed third in the 2023 South Australian State Title.
Mitch grew up watching speedway with his parents and said he had “always wanted to do that”.
He started racing when he was 16.
An online fundraiser for Mitch’s recovery in 2023 raised more than $25,000, and his Facebook page, MR Racing, has more than 1200 followers.
Max Vidau
Division: Sprintcars
Age: 23
Town: Flagstaff Hill
Well-known circuit driver Max Vidau made a splash in the South Australian speedway scene when he jumped right into the sport’s top class during the Covid pandemic.
“Covid struck and we had no racing to do, basically for the rest of the year,” Max said.
“The sponsors kind of came together and we decided to go sprint car racing.
“It was a good time just to get away, go racing with the old man again.
“The thrill of driving the thing is awesome and I would love to do it more, but unfortunately work says otherwise.”
Circuit racing remains Max’s priority, but he clearly has love for speedway, describing it as “such a different driving style compared to anything in the world … you can’t compare (the cars) to anything”.
The seasoned racer is nonchalant about crashes.
“Everyone kind of freaks out about the fact that you flip the car, but … if you’re not flipping the car, most of the time you’re not having a go,” he said.
While Max’s entry into the sport in the sprint cars division was rare, he said no motorsport beats speedway’s bang for buck, making it a great option for newcomers to racing.
“If you want to go racing for cheap … that’s definitely the way to do it,” he said.
As a circuit racer, Max recorded three wins and seven podium finishes in 2023, having returned to full-time racing in 2022 after the pandemic.
More than 27,900 people follow Max’s Facebook page, Max Vidau Motorsports.
Ben Morris
Division: Sprintcars
Age: 23
Town: Tennyson
Ben Morris was just a young boy when he fell in love with Speedway racing – frequenting the track religiously with his father who built the engines for various different classes.
Through his already illustrious career, Ben’s adoration for the sport has never wavered – even when he had to be rescued from his vehicle when it caught fire. Luckily, he walked away “relatively unscathed”.
“Speedway in my opinion provides the most exciting racing you’ll ever see, due to the fast cars and everchanging tracks teams are constantly adjusting to find an edge,” he said. “The sport is also welcome to all as most meetings give opportunities to fans to come before or after the meeting into the pits to look at the cars and also talk to their favourite drivers.
A winner of the 360 All Star Series Finale at Timmis Speedway in 2023, Ben now wants to take his talents all the way to an Australian Title.
“I’ll never forget the feeling of making my first World Series Sprintcar feature and doing the four wide, seeing the crowd in the stands and fireworks before the race just showed me what this sport is all about,” Ben said.
“My ultimate goal in the sport is to win a big meeting like the Classic or Australian Title.”
Violet Thorne
Division: Junior Sedans
Age: 15
Town: Compton
When a 13-year-old Violet Thorne crashed into a wall at her third meeting, few would have guessed she would soon be one of speedway’s up-and-coming stars.
“Yeah, it wasn’t a great night … I was very slow the next few races, but I got there,” she said.
The third-generation racer was encouraged to take up speedway by her father, former racer Leigh Thorne.
“I used to always go and watch. One night the juniors were on and dad asked if I would race in them, and I said yes,” Violet said.
In November, she won her first Top Star feature win at Mount Gambier (Borderline), having picked up three New Star feature wins in the 2023/24 season.
“I like the families and friends part of it. We all are good friends with everyone that races, and you just go out there and have some fun,” she said.
Violet’s ultimate goal is to race a sprintcar, but first she wants to “get a heap more wins and maybe place in a title”.
Her dad, Leigh, said he was surprised at how quickly she adapted to speedway, given she had no previous racing history.
“A lot of the other kids obviously race motorbikes or go-carts and stuff like that, but she had nothing,” Leigh said.
“My whole family’s raced since I was born, so for her to get involved in it, it’s good.
“She’s just very driven, and she realises as much as you can be competitive, you’ve got to enjoy it, and she does, big time.”
Kaitlin Vickers
Division: Wingless
Age: 17
Town: Angle Vale
Top dirt kart racer Kaitlin Vickers transitioned into speedway racing when she was 16, grabbing two heat wins within her first six meetings at Borderline and Murray Bridge.
She grew up watching her father, Wayne Vickers, race super sedans and AMCAs, but did not like the sport as a young spectator, preferring to sleep over at her nanna’s.
“But as I got older, I started to absolutely love the thrill of it and wanted to do it myself one day,” Kaitlin said.
Her first dirt kart racing attempt at age seven, in her brother’s dirt kart at Yorke Peninsula Kart Club, ended in tears because she got scared when a family friend passed her.
But Kaitlin said she had another go “and never wanted to stop”.
When she was 12, she rolled her kart down the main straight of Adelaide Dirt Kart Club in a major crash.
She lost her confidence and did not race again until a year later at Tatiara Karting Club.
However, she bounced back to perform strongly in multiple Australian and South Australian title events in 2021 and 2022.
At the Adelaide 500 in November, she received a third-place podium finish in wingless sprint on the NAPA speedway.
Kaitlin’s goal in speedway is to keep enjoying herself and eventually race an LS sprint car.
She said her “ultimate dream” is to race a midget or 410 sprintcar.
“I love doing this sport as I have met a lot of great people along the way,” Kaitlin said.
“The motorsport community always looks for the positives, which makes the atmosphere what it is.”
Parker Scott
Division: Sprintcars
Age: 18
Town: Mount Gambier
Parker Scott switched from go-karting to speedway only last year, he said, but the 18-year-old is already racing sprintcars with the sport’s best.
Having raced go-carts since he was seven, Parker last year took up the mantle of his father, sprintcar racer Ashley Scott.
Parker said it was difficult “learning to adapt to the dirt … the power and the way the car works”.
As a newcomer to sprintcars, he said the highlight has been “starting to race with all the leaders of the sport, and starting to learn off them”.
Parker has already faced nasty crashes, including a recent rollover at Murray Bridge that saw him sent to the chiropractor’s office with a “pretty sore back” and “jarred up pretty good”.
At another crash in Warrnambool last year, a steering component broke, sending him into a wall.
But Parker said moments like this are “all part of it, so you just gotta take them as they come”.
What does he enjoy about the sport? “I think it’s just the speed, and that I’ve been wanting to do it for so long. Now it’s my opportunity, so I’m just going to take it up and go for as long as I can,” he said.
His advice for other newcomers is to “expect to get beaten down and take the highs out of it, and not the lows”.
Parker’s goal is to win races in South Australia and eventually, overseas.
He has more than 1800 Facebook followers at Parker Scott Racing – Mount Gambier, having taken over his dad’s Facebook page this year.
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