Coventry Bees Speedway team's Elite League meeting at Swindon tonight has been postponed.
The Bees were without the injured Emil Sayfutdinov and Przemyslaw Pawlicki was absent and having to use rider replacement for Ed Kennett who has received a 12 month ban for using an illegal silencer on his bike.
As a result both clubs have now agreed to re-stage the meeting at the Abbey Stadium on Thursday 1st September with full-strength teams.
Swindon co-owner Terry Russell explained: “Rather than face Coventry with a makeshift team and short-change the supporters, we’d prefer to race the meeting when they have a full compliment of riders.
“Despite having had a poor season with our league position and results, we want to show to our supporters that we are in the Elite League for the right reasons – and that is giving them the chance to see one of the world’s brightest young talents in Emil Sayfutudinov.
"Emil has been a massive drawcard around the league since he signed for them a couple of months ago, and our fans will have been missing out on something if we'd just gone ahead with the match this week.
“We want to finish the season strongly with some top-class racing on track – and facing a full-strength Bees team will hopefully enable us to do that.”
The Bees are at home on Friday night to Belle Vue and will have Piotr Pawlicki, the younger brother of Przemyslaw riding for them.
The 16 year old replaces Travis McGowan who has been released by the team.
Bees co-boss Alun Rossiter said to the Bees website: “Piotr actually came over with his brother early last season and had a practice at Brandon, and we were impressed with him then. He was only just 15 at the time so we were obviously going to keep track of his progress.
“He hasn’t been able to come over until this point, but we’re pleased to bring him in now although we won’t be putting too much pressure on him.
“We know he’s got plenty of talent and it might also benefit his brother too – it will be nice to see both of them racing for us together.”