Our first motorsport event of AAA101 on a British bank holiday Monday in a rugby league stadium on a 360m speedway track with a surface made of sedimentary rock - roaring success or needing a primary pitstop? Read on and find out!
BOOKING
Unlike many events, you don’t have to book tickets for the stock car events. Tickets can be bought online with a small discount, and you can skip the turnstile queues on the day, but the online system doesn’t have a facility to book access tickets and add companion tickets - you turn up and pay at the gate. As the weather forecast was a bit dodgy for the bank holiday (no surprises there!), we thought this was a great option and decided on the day whether to go or not.
We contacted the organisers to confirm the access arrangements and were assured that there were wheelchair bays undercover in the main grandstand. All tickets are general admission, so no accessible seating is reserved, and everyone can sit where they want to.
Adult tickets were £22, seniors £20, 10-15 year olds £12, and children aged 9 and under go free.
Companions go free with proof of eligibility. I used my Nimbus card, also known as an Access Card, or you can use a confirmation letter of receipt of Carers Allowance. Yorstox handles ticket sales.
Hospitality upgrades are available for £40 per person. This gives you access to the ground floor area of the hospitality stand with a balcony view over the track, access to the pits, and a race day programme. The price is the same for all ages and includes your regular track admission ticket, but it does not include food, drinks, or parking.
For several days before the event, Yorstox, the organisers, posted updates including times, prices and location information. They also added a line to a PDF with all the essential information for anyone who hasn’t been to the stadium before.
If you’re visiting the stadium for a Bradford Bulls rugby league match, you will book your tickets with the Bulls. The Bulls advertise that on their match days, there are five high-level disabled viewing spaces on the North Stand (the main Grandstand), eight pitch-side on the South Stand undercover and up to 50 pitchside in an uncovered area reserved explicitly for Wheelchair users and their companions. Again, if you require a free companion ticket, you can’t make your purchase online, but you can call the club or visit the team shop onsite.
LOCATION AND GETTING THERE
Odsal Stadium is located south of Bradford, away from the city centre. Just a couple of minutes’ drive from the M606 and M62, it’s close to the major road network.
The nearest train station is Low Moor, a 45-minute walk or roll away. The central Bradford Interchange station is over an hour away on foot or by wheels.
There are multiple bus stops within a short distance of the stadium.
General car parking for the stadium is located at the now unused Richard Dunn's Leisure Centre, directly across the road from the stadium. Parking costs £5 per car, paid in the car park.
Limited spaces are available for Blue Badge Holders in the Stadium Car Park, accessed by Cleckheaton Road, Taylor Road, and Stadium Road from the Odsal Top roundabout. Parking is £5 per car, but we weren’t charged when we arrived.
There are some regularly marked-out parking bays in the park, but no specific accessible bays, which we thought was unusual. As we drove in, the staff at the gate asked to see my blue badge and asked if I had any specific requirements. When I asked to be parked where I could easily access my wheelchair, I was shown where to park, over near an unused turnstile alongside another car, leaving plenty of room for both cars to use all their doors.
For Bradford Bulls matchdays, the parking is different. There are six wheelchair spaces directly outside the Main Stand, and a provision for additional parking adjacent to the Main Stand has been allocated for Blue Badge Parking. The club also operates a drop-off/pick-up policy. Parking is also available adjacent to the other areas of the stadium. Parking is available on a first-come, first-served basis. This isn’t the case for the stock car events. A large portion of the stadium car parking is used as the pits for the cars. This makes the bays close to the main stand unreachable. This is why we didn’t see any marked accessible bays in the car park when we arrived - they’re at the other side!
GETTING IN
There are multiple turnstiles around the stadium, with a limited number used for stock car days. A set of turnstiles was open in the Stadium car park, near where we parked. We headed there, and my companion went to the turnstile to pay for us both. I was shown through a large gate, as my wheelchair wouldn’t fit through the turnstile. All was going well until we made our way to the grandstand, only to find that the only access to get anywhere from the turnstile had steps. Neither the girl on the turnstile nor the young man on the large gate had clicked that it wasn’t wheelchair accessible, despite my being in my chair!
After a half-hearted apology, an older man was called and asked to show us in. He took us further up the car park and into an alternative gate that gave us step-free entry.
We’d assumed the gate nearest to the accessible parking would be accessible, but this wasn’t the case!
FACILITIES
Before we go further, let me talk about the terrain!
Odsal Stadium is a rugby pitch surrounded by an oval racetrack in a sunken bowl. The top level of terracing is a long way above the track and the land banks down.
THIS STADIUM IS NOT FLAT! If you’ve already read the bit about parking, the parking for rugby games near the main grandstand only involves a small incline, depending on where in the parking lot you are. If you’re in the Stadium car park, it’s a bit of a trek to the grandstand. Getting there - not too bad, it’s mostly downhill. Back up? Not so good.
Be prepared and don’t get caught out!
The facilities at the stadium are basic, but they do the job.
At the back of the middle of the grandstand, there is a small snack bar built in, selling snacks, soft and cold drinks, and alcoholic drinks. Lager and cider are served in reusable cups, which require a £1 deposit on a 1-pint cup or a £2 deposit on a 2-pint cup.
The bar is at a reasonable height for wheelchair users to use.
Opposite the back of the grandstand was a small selection of food vans selling hot food, drinks, and sweets. These were your normal street food vans, so the counters were all high, and some had small steps in front of them.
Where the Terrace and T2 join at the corner, there was an ice cream van and a few wooden picnic benches. There were then a couple of food vans around the top of T2, including stone-baked pizzas, plus a couple of stalls selling stock car merchandise.
You can take a picnic with you, if you prefer!
Toilet-wise, there were a couple of large toilet blocks around the stadium, but only two accessible toilets were directly behind the grandstand. They were your typical outdoor sports venue building - concrete blocks with a coat of paint and a wooden door. The doors both had a radar key lock, but neither locked from the inside.
The toilets were a good size with the relevant grab rails and access features.
Access to the pits is included in your ticket. The time is limited due to safety, but if you want to look at the cars, maybe chat with the drivers and mechanics and get some pictures, pop down to the track a bit earlier for a look round. Part of the pits are on tarmac, but quite a lot is on loose ground, which will become muddy when wet. It’s not suitable for all wheelchairs, and there’s a bit of an uphill push to get there, but it’s down to your discretion whether you head up there or not.
SEATING
There are different seating options, some more suited to some weather than others.
Your admission ticket gives you access to the whole stadium, except for the Hospitality grandstand, which has balconies overlooking the south-eastern end of the track.
Along the back row of the main grandstand, you’ll find accessible wheelchair bays. Like many other football and rugby stadiums, they have an open space for a wheelchair and a fixed fold-down companion seat. There are several in each section of the stand, but spaces can’t be reserved as noted in the ‘Booking’ section. We didn’t have a problem getting a space as we were there fairly early, but as the day went on, the seats were quickly taken up by people who just found them convenient.
They are marked as accessible seating, and there is a member of safety staff in each section, but at no point did we see anyone get moved out of accessible seating or moved into it.
The seating on the grandstand is all comprised of fold-down seats that step down towards the track. Some rows towards the back have very few steps to reach if you have a mobility issue. The front so many rows (sorry, I didn’t count them!) nearest to the track are taped off for safety, but this still leaves an awful lot of available seating.
You can use the terraces if the weather is good and/or you don’t want to be undercover. The terraces have no seating, but you can sit on the edges of the steps. There are multiple leaning rails too. The bottom so many rows (again, sorry, I didn’t count them!) nearest the track are roped off for safety.
You can access the majority of the top row of terracing step-free, and there is signage to help you find your way in. In some parts, there’s a very small step down onto the terracing, but there are still lots of places you can go.
Take your fold-up chairs and get comfortable for a day of high-speed action.
I will warn you - depending on the track condition and the direction and strength of the wind, be prepared to get dirty! When we were there, it was extremely dry. They’d had a problem with a water bowser and hadn’t been able to keep the track dampened down, so everyone left the stadium with a dusting of pinky-orange on everything.
If the track is wet, it will be sticky and might flick up, but as spectators are kept away from the track, you’re likely not to get splattered!
GETTING BACK OUT
As I mentioned, it is an uphill trek from the grandstand back to the Stadium car park. The paths are tarmac and a bit rough in places, so it’s not too bad to wheel on it, it’s just such a long drag.
Some of the crowd left as soon as the racing finished; some took their time gathering stuff up and heading for the gates. Obviously, not being a big crowd, it didn’t make much difference to us. When we returned to the car, the car park was almost empty. Stock car vans, trucks, and buses were on the move, too, and they left via the same roads, so keep your eyes peeled as you leave.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE
Brilliant day out.
It was good value for money - £22, gates opened at 11am and the racing didn’t finish until after 6.30pm. When you can take a picnic, you can do it cheaply and have a great family day out.
The facilities are basic but do the job. There are accessible toilets, space for wheelchairs with family sitting near them, and undercover parking if the weather is bad.
I would definitely recommend it! It’s a cheap way to get into motorsport, with lots of action and the added bonus of seeing behind the scenes in the pits.
