By Paul Evans

Competitors at this year’s Aberdare Park Road Races will be the first to experience an improved track on which to race with the news that the organisers, Aberaman Motorcycle Club, have secured funding to resurface the circuit in advance of this year’s meeting on July 21/22.

The park, located just half a mile from the centre of Aberdare, first hosted motorcycle racing in 1950 and has since welcomed many of the greatest names in the sport. The late John Surtees took his first ever motorcycle race win there in 1952 when he was aged just 18.

In 1955 it hosted the first motorcycle race meeting ever to be televised live while other legendary names to have raced at the park include Mike Hailwood, Phil Read and Bob McIntyre. In 1988, Carl Fogarty set a new outright lap record for the one mile circuit.

This year, 23 time TT winner John McGuinness will be on hand on the Saturday of the event to meet the public and talk about his remarkable racing career.

“The resurfacing is important if we are to continue hosting an event that continues to attract an entry that is growing both in numbers and the quality of riders taking part,” said Race Director Derek Smith.

“We are very grateful to Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council and their leader Councillor Andrew Morgan, and to the Welsh Government, for their support. Without them this essential improvement work would not have been possible.”