The 1989 SEASON was a year of many changes at Reading's Smallmead Stadium.
Mr Reading Speedway and Racers legend Jan Andersson retired from British racing, Per Jonsson took a year away from the British League, the popular Malcolm Holloway switched to the National League with Mildenhall and Gary Tagg wasn't retained. Mitch Shirra took over the captaincy from Andersson and with the Ipswich Witches closing, the Witches promoter Chris Shears joined the Reading management team and brought three of his assets with him in Jeremy Doncaster, Armando Castagna and Carl Blackbird. Along with Shirra from the previous season, the Racers retained the ever-reliable Dave Mullett and Tony Olsson, with the latter becoming the only Swede in the Reading team.
Co-promoter Pat Bliss was sure she had built a potential Championship winning team, but with so many new riders in the side it was always going to take them time to settle. Co-promoter Bill Dore took on the team manager's job again in 1989, but before the end of the season Dore had stood down and Tim Sugar took over the reigns on his own, after sharing the role with Dore in 1988 and the early part of 1989.
Reading got their season off with a 49-41 home defeat against Oxford in the Southern Group of the Gold Cu, and that was followed up with a 53-36 reverse at Cowley four days later. The Racers did then reply with five success wins in the competition, which included away wins at Kings Lynn and Swindon, but with the Cheetahs only dropping three points in their eight group matches, Reading had to settle for second place in the group, and thus missing out on a Grand Final place against Cradley Heath. The Racers started off their British League campaign with a crushing 53-37 defeat at Cradley and although they did win 46-44 at Bradford seven days later, further away defeats at Wolverhampton (53-36) and Kings Lynn (62-28) left Reading precariously near the foot of the league table.
The Smallmead men did pick up narrow home wins over Oxford and Cradley during May, but the month was to end in disaster when Castagna broke his leg. Reading had gone a mini-tour of Italy racing a couple of meetings, but the Italian Stallion had decided to ride against his British team in those meetings. Whilst racing one of those meetings the Italian broke his leg, which immediately saw the end of his season having only ridden six league meetings for the Racers. He was looked upon as an ideal back-up to Shirra and Doncaster, but guests and rider-replacement never quite sufficiently covered for his absence for the remainder of the season.
In the very next home league match against Bradford, Reading's early season win at Odsal was wiped out as the Racers slipped to a 47-43 defeat to the Dukes. Reading did bounce back with a run of five successive wins, which included away successes at Coventry (48-42) and Belle Vue (48-42), but a run of only one win in eleven meetings stretching into September, saw the Racers slide dramatically towards the foot of the table.
Reading did salvage some pride with three successive home victories in September against Bradford, Kings Lynn and Wolverhampton, which was eventually ended with a 45-45 home draw against Coventry on 2nd October.
The Racers showed their liking for the big Odsal bowl at Bradford by defeating the Dukes for the second team in the season with a 48-42 success, but their season finished on a bit of a low with defeats at Oxford and Cradley, with a 49-41 home reverse against Belle Vue sandwiched in between.
So in the 1989 Sunbrite British League, Reading finished a disappointing seventh in the nine team league. To make things a little harder to swallow Thames Valley rivals Oxford stormed to the league title with 58 points, with Wolverhampton (52) and Cradley Heath 51 in second and third. Racers totalled 32 points and from their 32 league meetings they won nine, drew one and lost six at their own Smallmead Stadium. Reading won just four times on their travels and losing the other twelve.
In the Speedway Star KO Cup they did fair a little better. Racers received a bye in the first round, before defeating Belle Vue 95.5-84.5 in the second round. This put them up against Cradley in the semi-final. Reading lost the first leg 50-40 at Smallmead to the Heathens, so nobody gave them much hope going into the second leg, but the Racers surprised them all by pulling off a rare victory at Dudley Wood. Unfortunately the 49-42 win on foreign soil wasn't quite enough, as the Racers went out 92-88 on aggregate to the Heathens, who went onto defeat Wolverhampton 95-85 in the Final.
On the individual averages front Shirra's form dropped, but the Kiwi did have a valid excuse as his season was plagued all season long as he fought a series of charges around giving a positive drugs tests at two World Championship rounds the previous season. Shirra was banned; reprieved; banned again; reprieved again; given a suspended sentence; and then shocked to find the saga was still not over when he was charged with bringing the sport into disrepute by the Speedway Control Board. The latter charge represented yet another long-term threat to his career, but he was free to carry on racing providing he could stay out of trouble for a further twelve months. Despite all of that to cope with the New Zealand International put it all to one side and still managed to finish second in the Racers averages with a 7.68 figure. Doncaster was top man with 8.51 (32 meetings), followed by Olsson 6.38 (28), Castagna 5.37 (8), Blackbird 5.36 (32) and Mullett 5.16 (29). Holloway was recalled from Mildenhall when the National League club failed to keep up the payments on his transfer fee, and the Racers veteran went onto ride in 16 British League meetings for a 4.53 average.
On the individual front, the 1989 World Final in Munich, Germany, will probably go down as one of the least appealing finals in living memory. However it did see Doncaster finish on the rostrum in third place with 12 points, after losing a run-off for second place with Oxford's Simon Wigg. The Championship was won by another Oxford rider (Hans Nielsen), who ripped the field apart with an immaculate 15-point maximum. Tony Olsson made his World Final debut in the meeting finishing in eighth place with 8 points.
