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Ellis Perks has suddenly become very much in demand and it looks like his mind may be changed about riding again. However the current favourites to sign him appear to be a more Northern team than Redcar as they have a major sponsor prepared to finance the deal and cost of equipment and they would be saving more over the year not paying airfares for an overseas rider

Maybe Ben like other Diamonds riders was given the option to join another club if they chose as Newcastle will not be able to make any payments for meetings and expenses until 1st July

Not sure if this will have any effect on Kent Speedway but unfortunately Len Silver and his partner Hazel long running business Silver Ski holidays has gone into administration on Friday due to Covid 19 pandemic

This will depend on whether Nicholls wants Premiership racing as i know he was being considered as being the pundit for Eurosport coverage alongside the new presenter which would rule him out of riding in the Premiership as too many clashes

Both Ben Trigger and James Chattin were regulars at Leicester open practice sessions in 2020 which gave the promotion to look at both riders. Chattin did seem to struggle with the Leicester track at times both in his guest appearances and when I have seen him at practice with a few big crashes. But he is a lovely guy so I am sure that he will get another team place

A nice Zach Wajtknecht sized gap on 5.27, Although I did hear that he had some concerns about clashes with Longtrack GPs and also getting back to Plymouth from some of the German Monday meetings so the Gladiators may have gone down a different route.

There would be no issues streaming meetings from Belle Vue,Wolverhampton,Sheffield and Kings Lynn. Peterborough and Ipswich are a bit more challenging but can be done for a little more cost. The TV meetings will start around the same time as well

Ruml and Zach Wajtknecht would be my guess for the signings tomorrow. Plymouth are building a really good side so far

Another rider returning to the sport is my guess, but this time he is a lot younger than Crumpy & Bjarne, with more confidence now in his riding I am sure that he will be a success at Plymouth.

As Leicester have announced today there has been a significant drop in the points limit which has meant that Leicester now cannot include Danyon Hume, So Kent and others will be in the same situation and having to drop a rider at the top end of the team and replace them with a 3-4 point rider the idea is so that NL can develop and have team places for youngsters & new starters to the sport.

Where has the Woofy rumours come from ? As far as I know Tai is living in rental accommodation in the UK before moving his family out to Poland again for the season so why would he suddenly want to do the UK unless the Polish season does not go ahead

The difference is some of the riders that are based here in the UK Masters,Douglas,Morris,Nicol etc have already told their Polish clubs that once the British season starts they will only be able to ride in Poland if there are no travel restrictions in this place between the UK & Poland. Which makes total sense if you can ride 2 or 3 times a week in the UK guaranteed or ride once a week in Poland if they pick you look at Troy Batchelor situation he was out in Poland practicing regularly but they wouldn’t pick him for matches

BarrowBoy2- The slight concern over Josh Bates is him being able to stay on the bike and fit. With the team setup if he was out injured it would only leave the twins and Ty able to take a ride. As is normal in the winter plans change a few times as riders become available that were not originally able to be considered

The last time I spoke to Danyon he had a good steady full time job & young family . As much as he loves racing Speedway to race in Championship and National League he would need to give his job up so he would need to be able to guarantee a decent earning from Championship racing

It is for that reason that they will only start the season in Premiership if their is riders of the same standard. In 2019 both of the Thompson twins were beating home & away the likes of Rowe ,Palin,Flint,Gilkes,Bickley,Clegg,Edwards etc it may be a little too soon for the riders above and the standard maybe a bit more Kemp,Brennan, Perks sort of level

If the twins do step up to Premiership it will only be if riders of similar Standard such as Palin,Gilkes,Flint,Edwards etc do as well. Logistics can be sorted out as PL shouldn’t clash with NL apart from possibly a Kent fixture and the Thompson family have a good support network around them with each one having their own dedicated mechanics who are all very experienced right up to GP standard so being at different tracks I do not see being an issue for them especially if Sheffield and Peterborough as both home tracks are less than 1hr 30mins away from home

If reports are correct that Palin,Gilkes and Flint are riding in Premiership in 2021as rising stars then I would expect one of the Thompson twins to be at Sheffield with the other in East Anglia

North or to the Midlands?

The options to replace Perks were originally Josh Bates,Anders Rowe and Connor Mountain but then a change was agreed at AGM so some options were no longer available

All to be revealed very soon by Eurosport and then teams can start announcing signings for 2021

The biggest worry that the Polish league is going to have possibly in the future is losing GP riders, Although I have not seen the plans & ideas first hand I have it on good authority that in the long term Discovery Events want to add maybe 8-10 more GPs and have ideas of having riders on central contracts so they ride in GP series and a World Cup style event. I think most riders would be happy to do this if they can have a more guaranteed income from less meetings but will have more travellling

From what I am hearing from ex colleagues at Eurosport and BT I would not put any bets on that. Eurosport events have been very impressed by the early interest in Speedway rights in certain countries which will be Poland and UK. BT have got some very interesting times ahead as Amazon are after getting some of their rights off them, with large bids expected for Premiership and European Rugby Union,Premier League football and MOTO GP from Amazon who are trying to find more ways to keep customers paying their Prime subscriptions. So BT may well be very keen to keep Speedway GP if they can one thing though is they will not get it on the cheap as Eurosport will be putting in their own tender

The GP coverage was studio based and as basic as they could do with the studio sections in SD quality for some events. I also remember well when they did Cardiff GP and Kings Lynn World Cup meetings they would not pay for lighting operators and runners which ended up with the KL meeting ending with the presentation very dark

Tony Millard was a lovely guy and it was such a shame when the style of the Sky Speedway production was changed to have commentary and presentation done together so Tony was no longer required. I do still think the ride in studio presentation was the best although the amount of times the floor managers nearly got ridden over trying to get riders into the studios was quite a health risk. Getting back on topic I have a feeling that Eurosport may have a slightly different style to their coverage than BT. I am hoping that they do a better job of it than when they had the GP coverage as it was low budget as basic as they could get. Hopefully the money people in Paris will give Speedway a realistic budget to produce a high quality broadcast . As much as people moaned about BT coverage you have say that technically their production was the best yet with all meetings being in UHD and with a fresh style

Not that I am aware of in fact in 2021 Sky will be working even closer with Eurosport including having a UHD HDR channel which will be used to show the Olympics and some Tennis in UHD HDR What may and must stress May be leaving Sky,VM and BT Tv is Eurosport player and catch up services as Discovery (Owners of Eurosport) are keen to separate them from tv carriage deals and are looking to monetise them better with some sports being on Eurosport player when there is clashes. That is my worry for British Speedway is this get pushed online when Tennis,Cycling and Olympics are on