As it stands, Newcastle and Workington will meet at least 3 times home and away in 2013 (Ian Thomas Shield, League Cup and PL), not unlike Newcastle v Redcar last season (2012), when it got rather silly (and boring in my opinion)
As Backless points out, regionalisation means nothing, only to fans, as a lot of the riders don't live locally to the track (a few exceptions to that, I know, but, in the main, riders live 100's of miles away).