King's Lynn Stars close in on new rider

King’s Lynn Stars entertain Wolverhampton Wolves in the Premiership on Thursday aiming to soon sign a permanent replacement for Niels-Kristian Iversen at number one.

Team boss Alex Brady said: “For Wolverhampton here every club is racing so we’re running r/r (rider replacement) against them on Thursday.”

On Iversen’s absence, caused by a recall from the Polish speedway league, Brady said: “We’re getting close to trying to solve that problem now and getting a permanent replacement.

“It’s more likely to be at the end of this month than August which is earlier than anticipated.

“It’s slightly better news but we are missing having a full seven; no two ways about it we need to have a rider on track.”.

On the third round of the Premiership Pairs, Brady was pleased with the performance last Thursday of Richard Lawson and agreed he was looking more like himself from last season’s double-figure displays in backing up captain Josh Pickering.

“I think so,” Brady replied. “He did really well. He was gutted that he missed the gate in the semi-final.

“Against these guys you can’t afford to miss the gate by the distance he unfortunately did. Yeah, that was a big plus point and Josh was excellent as well.

“There were a lot of positives to take away from tonight which we wanted to win.

“I felt we were the best team in it. We didn’t quite make the final and we have to go away and regroup there.

“It stands us in good stead for when we race Wolverhampton back here and we have Belle Vue in the meantime.

Fine margins for the Minors & Brady Stars who missed by a whisker sealing an automatic spot in the final and then losing the semi to Sheffield.

“It feels like it has been like that for the last month, to be honest,” Brady replied. “Losing to Ipswich by two and by four, losing to Peterborough by two the other night and then tonight missing that gate.

“It might have been that we were the best team in it, but in the end we’ve ended up third in that split second drop of the clutch.

"We’re currently third, four points off the top, so if we have a good showing at Wolverhampton in the Pairs we’ll be right back in it.

“It’s hard to take but I think we’ll bounce back again and we’ll be fine.”

Brady booked former Belle Vue Aces man Craig Cook to guest for Iversen at No.1 away at the Aces on Monday night, but Lynn suffered an humiliating 61-29 defeat on their travels.

Lynn have now dropped to bottom spot.