Weather has made it even tougher for Stars

Welcome to Tape’s Up, the new column dedicated to speedway brought to you by the team behind the Pride of the East podcast for Your Local Paper.Podcasts co-hosts Nathan Bunting, Chris Abbs and Andrew Howell will be bringing you our views on all things related to the King’s Lynn Stars and news on all the major events across the world of speedway as the season progresses.I think it is fair to say that there was a fair amount of optimism amongst Stars fans at the beginning of the season that this would be a better year both on and off the track for the club.But so far it has been a tough start. After a promising performance in a narrow away defeat at Leicester in the season opener, a loss in the opening home fixture to Belle Vue Aces and a heavy defeat at Sheffield Tigers with an injury-hit side has been a bit of a blow.I feel the weather has played a big part in this as the team hasn’t been able to find any consistency or rhythm due to the cancellations. The loss of the home meetings against Birmingham and Leicester meant that the Stars went into a tough fixture against the Aces with very little track time under their belts and it showed on the night.The pleasing thing though was the size of the crowd against the Aces. It was one of the biggest crowds I’ve seen on an opening night at Lynn for several seasons and hopefully, the fans stick with the club as the season progresses.Talking of the weather, we must talk about the early decision to call off Monday’s home meeting against the Sheffield Tigers. I have to say I was surprised when I saw the news given the forecasts that I’d seen for Monday.Most of the rain looked to be missing Lynn and sure enough, it was a clear evening come start time. The weather is probably speedway’s worst enemy, and a club can be damned if they do and damned if they don’t concerning early call-offs.None of us want to stand there come start time waiting for a wet track to be re-laid and undoubtedly a poor forecast would probably affect the crowd level. Without a doubt, the club got the early calls-off right for the Birmingham and Leicester home meetings but I think it’s safe to say they got this one wrong.And given some of the noises coming out of the Sheffield camp, especially from their team manager (and former Stars rider) Simon Stead, I wouldn’t be surprised if we haven’t heard the last of this. I’m fully expecting that the Premiership CEO Phil Morris will be investigating the decision to call-off the meeting so early. The Stars were due to be in action at Oxford last night in an intriguing clash against the league newcomers.A good performance would do wonders to lift spirits going into next Thursday’s home meeting against Birmingham.n The Speedway Grand Prix series gets underway this weekend in Croatia and former Stars favourite Robert Lambert will be looking to improve on his sixth-placed finish from last season.Lambert has started the season in fine form for his Polish side Torun and will be looking to find the consistency that will take him into medal contention.While Lambert is yet to win a Grand Prix outright, he’s made five appearances in finals and its surely only a matter of time before he claims his first win.We’re delighted with how the Pride of the East podcast has been received.So far, we’ve had Stars co-promoter and team manager Rob Lyon on the show and we’ve also had former riders Shane Parker, Dennis Lofqvist and Emmerson Fairweather.On this week’s episode, we have Gary Robinson coming on the show who offers a unique insight into his time as a fan, and then as sponsor to several riders before becoming the main team sponsor of the Stars.We also discuss the season so far, how Stars riders are getting on abroad and regularly feature a fan of the week who tells us their all-time Stars 1-7.All episodes of the podcast are available to listen to for free on Spotify and Amazon or via the Sport Social Podcast Network website.We can also be found on Facebook and X and would love to hear from any fans who would like to be involved in the show.