LAKESIDE Hammers will be lodging a complaint with the BSPA after they were left with little option other than to cancel this coming Friday’s home meeting against Belle Vue.

LAKESIDE Hammers will be lodging a complaint with the BSPA after they were left with little option other than to cancel this coming Friday’s home meeting against Belle Vue after it proved impossible for three of their team (Lee Richardson, Kauko Nieminen and Jonas Davidsson) to race in the UK and then make practice the following day for their respective World Championship Qualifiers. Lakeside have followed Coventry and Peterborough in cancelling their fixtures.

The Club believes that the situation could have been avoided if our FIM representation had requested that practice times be arranged to allow for Saturday morning flight times and will ask why this was not the case. The BSPA has no direct representation and relies upon the ACU at the FIM table.

Jon Cook, the Hammers Co Promoter and Team Manager states: “Having spoken to both Colin Pratt at Coventry and Peter Oakes at Peterborough I know they share our anger with the situation and it’s certainly more extreme this year with all the Qualifiers being on the same day and the riders needing to practice with the new silencers. We had considered running with facilities and, to that end, we had booked both Scott Nicholls and Linus Sundstrom but we were stuck between a rock and a hard place as the feedback we were getting from fans consulted was that they were unlikely to want to support a Hammers select team.”

The loss of this meeting, which is provisionally rescheduled for 3rd September, means the Club will go two Friday’s without racing at home as fixtures have not been scheduled against England’s Football World Cup campaign, with date clashes on 18th June and a possible clash on 2nd July which is also the day before the next World Championship Qualifiers when the Club may face further rider absences. The Club have, however, reinstated their home fixture on the 25th June, which had initially been considered for a move to Monday 28th June.

The full Hammers home fixture list up until the Speedway World Cup is as follows:-

Friday 11th June - No Meeting

Friday 18th June – No Meeting

Friday 25th June - Eastbourne (Provisional)

Friday 2nd July - No Meeting

Friday 9th July – To Be Arranged

Friday 16th July - Poole

Wednesday 21st July – Coventry