LOUIS: NO CLEAR WINNERS!

BRITISH Speedway director Chris Louis expects a very competitive battle for the Premiership Pairs title when the seven top-flight clubs contest Thursday’s Major Event at Leicester.

The Ipswich co-promoter saw his side win the competition last year over a five-round series, with the 2023 event reverting to a one-off meeting after initial plans to run three rounds were scaled back due to the spring weather.

And Louis says the format which encourages team-riding with a 4-3-2-0 scoring system is another strong factor in the event.

Louis said: “It’s a format that I always enjoyed. When I was racing internationally, we had the World Pairs which I did with Mark Loram at Bydgoszcz and we got a silver medal – we were beaten by the Danes unfortunately, but that was a common occurrence in those days!

“But the format means the two riders have got to go out and look for each other in every race, they’ve got to try and help each other, and our lads were great at doing that last year.

“It’s 23 heats of very competitive racing, and Leicester have a good team of track curators so I’m sure they’ll be able to keep a good surface.

“It’s difficult to pick a clear winner and I’m sure we’re in for a great night of racing.”

Louis has also addressed the matter of the Ipswich line-up for the meeting, with skipper Danny King and Erik Riss representing the Witches rather than their top two of Jason Doyle and Emil Sayfutdinov.

Louis said: “It’s not by choice at all – Jason was competing in the event, but his rain-off in Poland last Friday has meant that meeting is now being run on Thursday, and due to the ISLB agreement we had to concede that one.

“Jason was very disappointed because he enjoyed the competition last year, he enjoyed winning it and was looking for more of the same this year, so that’s unfortunate.

“Emil was never contracted to do the Pairs. At the beginning of the season it was three rounds and looking at his fixture list and commitments, he decided that was adding too much so he said league and KO Cup is enough.

“Obviously we wanted him in the team so we took it on that basis, but in Danny and Erik we have two riders that in general enjoy Leicester so I still think they’ve got a pretty good chance of mixing it.”