7With the new season about to get underway, there' s the drama and tension of the first ride for both supporters and riders as the tapes go up for the first time. Lets look at some very dramatic first races

Jim McMillan 

Glasgow raced Coatbridge in the Champagne Derby, the 1968 season opener at The White City. New signing Lars Jansson and Jim McMillan lined up against Reidar Eide and Doug Templeton , with fans interested to see how the new Swede would fare . However it was Jim McMillan that most remember in this race. He was most fortunate to avoid serious injury in a first race pile up. He slewed round coming out of the second bend and lay right in the path of Doug Templeton, who instinctively knew he had neither the time nor the space to lay his bike down. Instead, he pulled his front wheel high in the air, so that his engine block would miss the fallen Tiger. All the same his back wheel seemed to run over McMillan’s head! The badly shaken Tiger was helped back to the pits. Lars Jansson went out and won the rerun, on his home debut. Amazingly, after missing two races, Jim McMillan returned to race later in the meeting and got two second places.

Pete Baldock

Peter's much awaited arrival came at a time Tigers were struggling to fill the number seven slot.  Les Whaley had high expectations of him but reckoned he may need a few weeks to settle in but needs must so he was pitched straight in. He was obviously quite hyped up for his initial ride! He knocked Les McGillivray off on the first bend and with the red lights now on mowed down his partner Willie Templeton. He failed to score in his next ride and that was the end of his night. Other than two points at Swindon, he failed to score in any of his five meetings before he too was released to Berwick.  

Ray Palmer 

As a teenager Rocket Ray Palmer rode for Glasgow for two seasons in 1980 and 1981 before returning home to Australia. His return to Blantyre in 1986 was widely anticipated by Tigers fans. He too was pitched straight back in on his return but couldn't get the hang of the new starting procedures and was excluded in both races in the league meeting against Eastbourne. 

He got the hang of things in a second half race when he crashed with Kenny Brailsford who recalls "I was on outside and Ray was in the inside gate. He made a great start his throttle jammed and went straight on, clipped my back wheel, sent me crashing into the main pillar of the fence, I was knocked out rushed to hospital and spent the night in the intensive care unit.

should have cut inside Ray, rather than go outside. I just seemed to lose edge over the crash and  didn’t get it back."  Ray Palmer didnt regain his team place

 

Nagy, Csillik and Fliegert

 Edinburgh opened their 1992 season with a Spring Trophy challenge against Glasgow, who paired new signings Hungarians Robert Nagy and Robert Csillik together and they faced Kenny McKinna and Monarchs debutant Darius Fliegert in heat three. At the first attempt, only McKinna made it past the second bend , with Nagy being excluded as the cause of the stoppage. Nagy after a slow start proved the signing of the season, winning the Division Two Riders Championship later in the season.

 

Reg  Craven

Most tragically of all, Yarmouth's Reg Craven was killed in the very first race  of the first ever meeting at Poole in April 1948. It is understood that this was his first race for the Bloaters,