Bears set for Brummies battle
The Redcar “Agilia” Bears head back to home comforts for the 1st leg of their KO Cup encounter against the Birmingham Brummies (Friday 19:30 start). The Bears have 2 riders unavailable as Anders Rowe is on European Under 19 pairs duty in Poland whilst Jordan Stewart is undergoing surgery after his horrible crash at Perry Barr on Wednesday. Guesting for the unavailable Anders Rowe is Berwick star Leon Flint who is in terrific form in both the National Development League and the Championship. The Bears will operate rider replacement in place of the injured Aussie Jordan Stewart. Also involved in Wednesday’s crash was Birmingham’s Valentin Grobauer who will miss Friday’s encounter as he is still feeling the effects of the heat 10 incident, rider replacement will operate in his absence.
Wednesday’s clash was originally scheduled to be the first leg but after over an hour’s delay for remedial work to be done to the track the meeting did not begin until 20:35. When the meeting did get underway the Bears showed no fear and were beginning to put the second city club to the sword until the abandonment of the meeting after 9 completed heats with the score sat at 23-31.
Bears co-promoter Jamie Swales is looking forward to friday night speedway returning to the Media Prima Arena “It’s always going to be a tough match when the track record holder (Chris Harris) comes to town, he might be in the latter part of his career now but Bomber showed on Wednesday he’s still a force at this level, throw our old favourite Erik in there and they have a potent spearhead to their team. That said, we have full faith in our team’s ability to see us through this tie. It’s funny really to think that we’ve had a sticky start to the season because we’ve let a couple of wins slip through our fingers, but I think the lads are really starting to find their form now. The performance they all put in at Perry Barr on an unprepared racetrack was outstanding, the senior members of the team did a great job in keeping everyone’s head during the match and race results started coming, it’s hard to single anyone out but our rising star Jordan Jenkins is doing great and getting two 5-1s was particularly impressive. At the end of the match we had what was the worst possible outcome and the reason so many of the riders had raised concerns about the track surface in the first place. It now looks like we’ll be missing Jordan Stewart for some time which is a major blow to the club, fingers crossed he makes a speedy recovery and we will get him back in the Bears body colour as soon as possible, I’m sure the rest of the team will be fired up to win this one for Jordy”.
Tickets are still available for today’s meeting but they are selling fast so please book in advance to avoid disappointment!
REDCAR: Charles Wright, Leon Flint (G), Michael Palm Toft, Jordan Stewart R/R, Jake Allen, James Sarjeant, Jordan Jenkins. Team Manager: Jade Mudgway
BIRMINGHAM: Chris Harris, Valentin Grobauer R/R, James Shanes, Ashley Morris, Erik Riss, Paco Castagna, Jack Thomas. Team Manager: Laurence Rogers