The Wrights live and breathe speedway, and they live and breathe Murray Bridge.

In fact three generations of Wrights call Murray Bridge Speedway home.

Ross Wright began racing speedway in the late fifties, a year after the speedway was built. Brothers Dean and Bruce also raced a few years after Ross began.

Darryl, son of Ross and Val, began in the Formula 500 division in the early eighties as soon as he was old enough, and then raced alongside father Ross and uncle Dean in the Hotrods until moving up to Sprintcars in the late nineties. Ross also moved into Sprintcars a couple of years later, racing club nights with Darryl.

The progression to Sprintcars was a natural one, as plans were in place to extend the Murray Bridge track, permitting Sprintcars to now race at Murray Bridge, thus becoming the new popular drawcard for the venue.

Darryl’s son Brad now races a Junior Sedan and has also shown great promise.

Ross became ill in 2005, and battled cancer for three years until he was beaten by the disease in 2007. As a devoted life member of the speedway club, the function centre at the venue was named after him, and a race was devoted in his honour.

The Ross Wright Memorial now is part of the Australian 360 Sprintcar Championship and Darryl will race to win both events this weekend.

Darryl has been fast in previous Australian Championships at the venue, finishing second in 2006, and qualifying on the front row for the past two years, only to run into difficulties during each race.

He has the equipment and has the talent and has the home track advantage.

However Darryl’s preparation has been far from perfect after crashing the car 10 days ago in the warm up race for this weekend. But the Wrights have been through worse and will fight against adversity.

It is also to no surprise that with such close ties to the speedway and to this weekend’s race, that the family business, Murray Machining & Sheds is backing the running of the Australian 360 Sprintcar Championship.

The Ross Wright Memorial Preliminary Feature will be run on Saturday night, with the Australian Championship final run on Sunday night, and Darryl would love nothing better than holding both winning trophies at his home track.