Speedway boss hoping options emerge soon to rebuild team

Lynn boss Rob Lyon is hoping options emerge later this month to rebuild the top end of his team.Stars have been hit by two hammer blows in the last fortnight with Nicolai Klindt ruled out for the remainder of the season with a serious neck injury, while Tobiasz Musielak this week confirmed he won’t be returning either.Musielak’s decision is a controversial one as he is continuing to race in Poland, but he has told Lynn he does not want to put added strain on his undoubted injuries with more meetings in the UK.What the club have found difficult to fathom is that the decision came days after he was directly quoted in a Speedway Star magazine feature stating how he was looking forward to returning.Musielak had said: “I will come back when I am ready and fit. I signed a contract to race for a club, and I will do my job.“I am buzzing to come back and race my bike around the UK. I will rock when I return, I promise!”The massive problem for the Stars is the differing way in which the two rider absences are handled by the sport’s authorities.In the case of Klindt, there is clearly no doubt that he is on the long-term injury list, and there is therefore no issue with Lynn booking guest riders on a match-by-match basis, or using the rider replacement facility for Klindt where other members of the team share his rides. It’s not an ideal solution given the form the Dane had been showing, but on most occasions, it should at least give them the potential to replicate his points scoring. However, Musielak’s situation is very different, as the fact he is racing elsewhere means he is deemed to be ‘withholding services’ in the UK – and in that case, only a 28-day grace period is granted before the options narrow.If the Stars cannot find a rider to replace Musielak full-time when the Premiership season resumes after the break for the Speedway of Nations competition, any guests they use will be limited to 75 per cent of the Pole’s average, which will be a substantial reduction in quality.Lyon said: “The whole situation, across the board, is really frustrating. If you said at the start of the season you would lose (Vadim) Tarasenko, Klindt and Musielak you would think ‘that’s not going to happen’, but it has. “We had a similar situation at Peterborough last year and we all know how tough it is to get riders.“Sometimes you get down a particular road and think something is going to happen, then it doesn’t. Other times it comes together quite quickly as it did with Jan Kvech and you get a good rider. “It is very difficult but I do think you possibly have a better chance of getting that type of rider in mid-July, two-thirds of the way through the season, than you have in May and June. We have to wait to see.”Fixtures New dates have been agreed for the outstanding fixtures between Lynn and Leicester, following recent postponements.The PSH Environmental Stars will host the Lions in a Round 2 fixture on Monday, September 2, with the return in the East Midlands on Thursday, September 5.The Lions are also due at the Adrian Flux Arena on Monday, July 15, which now becomes the Round 1 match.Stars’ next meeting is on July 15 when they are at home to Leicester, with a new date required for the Lions to make a second visit after a frustrating rain-off an hour before the start time on Monday.