Stars await outcome of inquiry

King’s Lynn is awaiting the outcome of a Speedway Control Bureau inquiry following the postponement of tonight’s home fixture against Leicester.The SCB stated that both they and British Speedway Promoters’ Ltd were “disappointed” with the Stars’ announcement, which was conveyed at the start of the week.Lynn took the course of action after discovering that Polish duo Tobiasz Musielak and Patryk Wojdylo would be required to race in their own country on the same night, even though the UK does have international priority over riders on Mondays and Thursdays.Musielak subsequently crashed out of the win over Birmingham and suffered a broken collarbone, whilst Wojdylo brought the house down at the Adrian Flux Arena with a six-ride paid maximum in a truly sensational performance.Stars would have been entitled to use guest riders to cover their absence in the Leicester match, although the options for Musielak in particular were extremely limited, and certainly, they could not expect to find another rider capable of matching Wojdylo’s contribution last week. They therefore decided that to run the meeting against the Lions would not make “business sense” and say they have been fully transparent with the information they have provided to the authorities.The difficulty comes in the definition of promoters’ responsibilities, which states that clubs are permitted to postpone meetings “if there are exceptional conditions as would make racing impossible” which would typically be the weather. In Lynn’s case, it would certainly have been possible to stage last night’s meeting albeit with the Stars nowhere near full strength, and there is plenty of precedent for that happening when clubs have suffered from an injury crisis.It was the Polish clash rather than the Musielak injury which caused them to take the action they did, and it presented an unusual situation for the authorities to resolve. On the one hand they have the club apparently in breach of their responsibility to stage a meeting; but on the other, that club did not receive the protection they should have been afforded under the terms of the sport’s international calendar.It’s an unhappy saga and one which has cast a shadow over what should have been some welcome positivity after the home win against the Brummies last week.Stars are due at Perry Barr in the return fixture on Monday, before they return to the Adrian Flux Arena to face champions Sheffield next Thursday.