It’s crunch time on Tuesday (19th. Oct.) in Speedway’s National League [NL] when the two sides vying to get to the summit and claim the title go head to head at Central Park: Kent Iwade Garage vs Mildenhall Tigers.
Kent have three matches left and have no margin whatsoever for any slip up, needing three wins to overtake current leaders, Berwick Bullets. For the visitors there are two chances to ensure they can finish top of the pile and a win on Tuesday would settle matters once and for all in their favour.
John Sampford’s Royals are at full strength with skipper Ryan Kinsley back in the septet. Their opponents from Suffolk have though been hit by an unexpected blow, with club stalwart Luke Ruddick joining an alarmingly growing list of experienced young riders announcing premature retirements from the sport.
It’ll be Rider Replacement covering for Ruddick’s absence and ironically there are two former Kings riders in the remaining West Row sextet from 2019 who actually both took breaks themselves from the sport in that campaign: Jordan Jenkins, who’s risen back up the averages to become a number one for his original club Mildenhall; and Nathan Ablitt, who made the most of his decision to walk away from the Kings to preserve a low starting average to join his preferred choice Eastbourne, only for the Arlington club’s closure leading him to link up again with Jenkins in the Suffolk Fens.
There’s another ex-Royal who actually never was in Sam Hagon. The teenager was due to be backing up his 2019 British 250cc Youth title with a first ever league season with Kent’s NL team in 2020 but the pandemic saw that was never to happen and instead he decamped to Mildenhall for his delayed debut season – and this will be his belated Central Park debut. A rider who’s been seen (and secretly admired) by the Central Park faithful in previous NL campaigns has been Jason Edwards and a third place in this year’s GB U19 Final recently shows the steady improvement the Essex born rider continues to make. The Mildenhall side is completed by two more youngsters, Sam Bebee and a Central Park first-timer Elliot Kelly.
The action gets underway at Central Park on Tuesday 19th. October at 6.30pm (gates at 5pm).