UK NATIONALS: Championship moved

The British National Championships have been moved on by 48 hours because of bad weather in the UK. They will now take place at 19:45 BST in Manchester at the National Speedway Stadium.

They are moving the location from Ipswich as the management at the track feel they cannot deal with the downpours that occurred over the last few days.

The semifinals in Poland’s Ekstraliga have also been moved to Monday to allow for bad weather conditions.

The finals will take place without fans at the ground, as the UK goes back into lockdown to deal with the increased cases of COVID-19. That is the same reason that has caused next month’s Speedway of Nations competition to be removed from the Belle Vue Aces’ home ground. So at least the Manchester track will get to see some action, which can be watched via pay per view TV.

The British national championship sees the much awaited return to British soil of Australian World Champion, Jason Crump. He was born in the UK and has British citizenship, but has always raced in Aussie colours.

Crump has planned to race with Ipswich Witches and came to the UK at the beginning of the year, only to have to return to Australia when the Coronavirus broken out.

Crump is not the only Australian who will be racing in this year’s British championship. Rory Schelin has been raced in the UK since 2001 and is currently under contract with Wolverhampton Wolves. But he was born in Australia, won the U21 Australian national championship in 2003 and 2004 as well as representing the Roos as a Senior in 2006 and 2007. He also raced in League 1 in Poland between 2011-2016, with three seasons at Orzel Łódź. He, in fact, represented them in three matches last year too. 2020 was due to be his last in the UK.