The 2020 calendar is fast filling as is the anticipation growing for Kent Speedway aficionados with the details announced of the three big set-piece events in the Speedway Great Britain Championship [SGBC] for the forthcoming season.
The long-established second tier Riders' Championship title (first staged back in 1968) is dubbed these days as the Championship Individual and will be staged at Sheffield on Sunday September 6th.
The South Yorkshire track will hold happy memories for Kent fans as it was the venue last year of the National League Pairs won by the then TouchTec Kings' duo of Anders Rowe and Drew Kemp. Like that occasion, the Championship Individual at the well-appointed Owlerton circuit will be a neutral venue for the riders taking part (with at least one per club going for the individual Riders' title) as the Sheffield team have moved up in 2020 into Speedway's Premiership.
Meanwhile the Pairs event in the tier that the TouchTec Kings have moved up into, the SGBC will be held, as has long now been traditional, on the eve of the Cardiff-staged Speedway World Championship's British Grand Prix at Somerset Speedway's Oaktree Arena in Highbridge.
The venue just yards off the M5 is a hugely popular one with fans and the Championship Pairs is a highlight of the Speedway calendar making it an event the new look Kent TouchTec Kings will be extremely keen to annex - and in their Argentinian-born Italian racer Nico Covatti they have a former Somerset rider who could well be the ace in the pack come July,
There's a new major sponsor for the event and it will now be known as the Travel Plus Tours Championship Pairs with the world’s largest and well known Speedway tours company joining up with the British Speedway Promoters’ Association [BSPA].
BSPA Chairman Rob Godfrey said: “The Pairs is always a popular event - the perfect curtain raiser for fans making their way to Cardiff for the Grand Prix weekend.
“Somerset is the ideal location for all Championship clubs and they always do a great job staging the meeting. And now we have James Easter and his team from Travel Plus Tours supporting the event, it’s the icing on the cake.
James Easter, head of the Suffolk based operation, said: “This event has over the years become immensely popular, with supporters taking in the meeting en route to Cardiff, and each year our clients have helped swell the attendance, so it makes a great fit for us."
That weekend in July with the SGBC Pairs at Somerset on the Friday the 17th. and then the country's showpiece round of the World Championship, the Principality Stadium-staging of the British Speedway Grand Prix on Saturday 18th. will be topped up then by the staging on the Sunday (the 19th.) of the Championship Fours, This is to be held at Leicester Speedway and making it a three day bonanza of high speed action.
The Fours at the splendid Beaumont Park venue in the East Midlands city will see Kent's newly-installed skipper Scott Nicholls returning to the track where he led the Leicester Lions to league title glory in 2019. Seven-times British Champion Nicholls has tasted Championship Fours success before - in the season-before-last with Peterborough, while Covatti won it last term with Somerset Rebels.
BSPA chairman Godfrey comments, “Having the two major Championship 'shared-events' book-ending the Cardiff SGP means a fantastic all-round package for fans who can make the weekend one to remember.
“Somerset always do a fantastic job on the Friday night before Cardiff hosting the Pairs and it always creates a great atmosphere.
“With the addition of the Fours at Leicester the day after Cardiff it really is a great opportunity for fans to make a weekend of it.
“It’s an opportunity for fans heading back north from Cardiff to drop by Leicester and take in some more great Championship Speedway.”
Tickets will be available for the Friday and Sunday events from the British Speedway website on a date to be confirmed soon.
Admission prices and start times will be announced in due course.