PREVIEW: Wednesfield’s pre-season northern tour

2015 British Team and Elite League Champions, Wednesfield Aces, kick off their season at the weekend, as they they do a pre-season, three match tour of the north.

They travel to Edinburgh on Friday afternoon by mini bus and stay in the Travelodge Hotel in the centre of Edinburgh. They are up bright and early on Saturday to take on Stevie Gilroy’s Edinburgh Falcons in a challenge match with the start at 12 o’clock.

Aces manager Wayne Aris says: “This will a good test for us and I’m expecting some good racing. The Falcons have some quality in their side, lead by their number one rider and Wedensfield’s new Elite League signing, Mikey Hewitson. He will be backed up well by long time team mates Craig Newsome, Callum and Jake Slight and Alan Smith. Throw into that a couple of riders I have not seen before like Marcin Czarkowski and Kamil Greszla, then this is a team, that round their own track could push us right to the wire.

“Wednesfield will have a team of four times British Champion Lee Aris, Team GB captain Paul Heard and Welsh International Ben Mould as their heat leaders. They will be backed up by young Scotland international Lee Kemp and to complete the team will be Scott Doherty Harrie Everiss and Connor Dyke. For that little bit of experience, we have added former Eurovets Champion Mark Griffiths and Steve Mullinder. So with these two teams going head to head we are in for a very interesting match.

“We then throw our bikes on the roof rack and head south for 90 miles to Newcastle. Once again we pitch down for the night in a hotel on Saturday, before getting up on Sunday to do it all again against a more experienced team of riders, Northumbria Vikings, around the Cramlington circuit.”

Kicking off at 1pm, unfortunately the Vikings will be without their British Veterans Champion, Gavin Parr, but experienced home riders Jason Keith and Terry Kirkup will be on the track and they have called in two guest riders, Mikey Hewitson and Neil Swanson to bulk up their team with the loss of Gavin for this friendly.

Aris continued: “The Aces will have to be at their best if we want to take the win as this is a track I don’t think any of us have ridden before and with Northumbria on their own track, then anything can happen. The Aces will be racing with the same bunch of lads as the previous day, except club captain Chris Jewkes will be making the journey up to Newcastle to ride for Wednesfield.”

On the same Sunday as the Newcastle match, Wedensfield Aces will be sending a separate team to compete in another Challenge match against Bury, with the help of two former Aces riders Ben Higham and Terry Norman. This is a return fixture from last year when Bury came to Ashmore Park.

Aris said: “The rest of the team will consist of Wedensfield’s two new Elite members Nicky Evans and Reece Pollitt, U16 British Champion Brandon Whetton, young Welsh rider Karl Parfitt, Tom Haddock (who is looking keen and it’s great to see him back on a bike) and our other super vet Phil Hemming, who with his experience will be managing the team as well.

“This is going to be a great weekend for the Aces Club and hopefully it will be the start to a great season.”

Thanks for the update Wayne!