The Scottish Open Championship is a

motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that use only ...

championship held annually in Scotland.

History

The Championship has been run almost every year since 1928. That inaugural year saw two events, one for 350 cc bikes and another for 500 cc bikes. From 1929 the event was only open to those riding the 500 cc bikes. Run as the Scottish Championship from 1928-1945, it became the Scottish Riders Championship from 1949-1954 before a third and final name change in 1960 to the Scottish Open Championship. Since 1988, the winner of the Scottish Open has been presented with the Jack Young Memorial Trophy in honour of the three time winner and former

Edinburgh Monarchs The Edinburgh Monarchs are a Scottish Speedway team, currently based in Armadale. They compete in the SGB Championship, racing on Friday nights during the Speedway season. The club is run by a board of directors, chaired by Alex Harkess. The cl ...

rider from

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

who won the

Speedway World Championship The World Championship of Speedway is an international competition between the highest-ranked motorcycle speedway riders of the world, run under the auspices of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM). The first official championsh ...

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...

and

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...

. Young won the World Championship in 1951 while riding for the Monarchs, thus becoming the first

second division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

rider to win the World crown. Young died from

Emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...

in his home town of

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

on 28 August 1987.

Winners (since 1928)

References

{{Speedway in the United Kingdom Motorsport in Scotland Speedway competitions in the United Kingdom