Major racing achievement for Tayla Street

AUSTRALIAN racer from Flowerdale, Tayla Street, travelled all the way to Croatia in July as she was selected to represent Australia at the 2025 FIM Women’s Speedway Gold Trophy at the FIM speedway academy.

The three day event consisted of the first two days training with elite coaches Greg Hancock, who is a full-time speedway world champion, and probably one of the most successful speedway riders, and Glen Phillips, who is also a speedway national rider in track and long-track.

Tayla explained, “They had a lot of people who have so much experience with giving on-site coaching and the right devices to help you develop and build your skills before the main event on the Saturday.

It was very good to have that. It was almost like a bit of a leg up. It’s a pretty big deal to go over and ride in a foreign country, but then to also have two days of practice and coaching from these awesome people, it was a massive bonus.

“They had seminars as well, how to maintain your bike, and then also having the ability to understand how to conduct yourself in media, like social media, and how to promote yourself in a professional manner.

It was insightful, those first few days. You had a lot of track time, but you were also working on not only riding the bike but having high-performance techniques like coming into the corners and having cones in certain spots to get the right line, and every rider is different, so finding the right process.

And then the final day was the main race meeting.”

There were four heat races on the main race day. “I started from the outside in the first race and then each race I moved to the inside. My first heat I was starting from the outside, which was yellow, and that race I got a win, which was awesome.

I was like ‘alright, I’ve had a good start to the day.’ My second race I got a second, and then my third race I got a third, and then I got a win. Every race that I rode I had points, which was awesome, and which put me in fourth place for the last chance qualifier.

“How speedway works, for the first two people, they have an automatic direct route to the final, and then from fourth to sixth you have a race and whoever finishes first and second is into the final.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the result that I wanted to in the final, but it was an exhilarating experience for me and it was just, for me to get sixth place in the world, I couldn’t ask for a…

Image: Tayla (centre) looking incredibly proud of her efforts.