Weymouth warm up for the big time with a win.

Weymouth Wildcats celebrated their imminent return to the big time by lifting the Paul Gladwin Memorial Trophy at Somerset Rebels' Oak Tree Arena last night.

Just a week after gaining planning permission to bring speedway back to the resort after almost 20 years, promoter Brian White watched his team sweep aside the challenge of Swindon Sprockets, Bristol Bulldogs and Newport Mavericks in a competitive four-team showdown in honour of the young rider who tragically lost his life in a road traffic accident last summer.

And Wildcats fans who made the hort journey up the M5 also had the pleasure of seeing 15-year-old hot prospect Ben Barker take second spot in the individual final behind Sprockets' star Simon Walker. A beaming White said: "What a week it's been. I didn't think it could get any better after we won our battle to get planning permission to build a track back at the Wessex Stadium, but this is the icing on the cake."

"Our first meeting at Sittingbourne last month was tremendous but on paper this looked a far tougher proposition. To have taken victory here is a fanastic achievement and the lads wearing Weymouth jackets this evening are some of the riders I hope to get full time when we enter the Conference League next season. It bodes well for the future and I just can't wait until the tapes go back up at the Wessex Stadium."

The Wildcats got off to a roaring start, picking up where they left off at Festival of Speed meeting in Sittingbourne five weeks earlier. Wayne Barrett, riding for the club with whom he started his career 20 years earlier, left his opponents standng to give the Dorset outfit an early lead and it was Justin Elkins who followed up with an equally impressive performance in heat two.

The Weymouth skipper was slow out of the gates and well behind Bristol's Jamie Holmes coming out of the second bend but he found some grip on the outside going down the back straight and once he got past the leader there was only going to be one winner. A useful two points for Nathan Irwin in heat three, courtesy of Bulldog's Andy Carfield's unfortunate engine gremlins, kept the Wildcats out in front and Barker increased that advantage with a fine success in an incident-packed heat four which was marred when Bristol's top female star Jessica Lamb went hurtling into the safety fence.

The flying blonde received pro-longed treatment on the track from paramedics before being taken to hospital by ambulance with a suspected broken wrist. That spill and a couple of earlier mishaps persuaded the match referee to ask for racing to be halted while track staff worked to iron out a number of surface discrepancies thought to have been caused by over watering.

With the Wildcats holding a five point lead over Newport going into a delayed heat five, there was a right battle royale between Elkins and Malcolm Holloway with the Sprockets' veteran taking the chequered flag to close the gap by a point. The Bulldogs got themselves back into contention with Holmes collecting his team's maiden three point haul of the night ahead of Barrett after Mavericks' Danny Warwick had hit the deck when leading with less than a lap to go. Tom Brown made up for Warwick's mistake by beating Wildcat Barker next time out to leave the running score after seven races at Wildcats 17, Bulldogs 9, Mavericks 9, Sprockets 7.

Swindon's second success came in heat eight when Walker held off a determined challenge by Weymouth's Irwin, while Newport collected their third maximum in race nine when Brown got the better of Bristol favourite Paul Candy. The Wildcats run of seconds and thirds continued in heats ten and 11 which went to Sprockets' pair Holloway and Walker respectively, leaving the team totals at Weymouth 23, Swindon 16, Bristol 15 and Newport 12.

With the meeting running way behind schedule due to that earlier break for track maintenance, it was decided that heat 12 would be the last in the team event which mean Wildcats' captain Elkins went into the last race knowing that his side couldn't be beaten. However, that didn't stop the grasstrack specialist turning in a commanding display to make the final scoreline Wildcats 26, Sprockets 17, Bulldogs 15, Mavericks 14.

The individual final, contested by the four top scorers without Premier League speedway experience under their belts, proved a cracker. The first attempt was halted due to an unsatisfactory start and then Barker was caught napping at the tapes in the rerun and was way behind Walker, Candy and Warwick going into the second lap. But the Trelawny asset gave it everything he had to scorch past Candy and Warwick and he would have reeled in Walker had the racing lasted another circuit.

White added: "Ben has a wonderfull future ahead of him and he would have won that final had he not been asleep at the start. Nevertheless it was a super ride and he reminds me of former Wildcats' great, Steve Schofield." The Wildcats will return to the Oak Tree Arena on Friday, August 22 for full-scale Conference Challenge match against the Somerset Rebels.