Kent Speedway should have been celebrating an historic occasion at the Central Park Stadium tonight.

The Sittingbourne speedway track was due to host the first ever second tier league match, with the current SGB Championship title holders Leicester Lions due to have been visiting on Wednesday night.

Kent will be riding in an expanded Championship division next season, one level below the Elite League.

It's reward for the Sittingbourne-based club who made the National League play-offs in each of the past three seasons, also winning National Trophy and National Pairs titles.

Speedway is on indefinite hold right now and the riders are itching to return.

Kent TouchTec Kings’ new skipper - and the man who captained the Lions to that 2019 league title - Scott Nicholls can’t wait to begin his 27th season with a new team.

The legendary 41-year-old seven-times British Champion said: “I’m really keen to race for the Kings.

“When you have been around in the sport as long as I have and ridden for many of the teams in the leagues, it’s unusual to race for a team I’ve neither raced for nor against.

“Remarkable too that it’ll be for a promoter, in Len Silver, who I have never raced for either. I obviously know all about Len’s amazing background in the sport, including being a three-times World Team Cup winner as England manager, and I have a lot of respect for Len and loads of time for him.”

Nicholls doesn’t even know what the Central Park track looks like. When he made the trip to sign for the club it was in the dark.

He said: “I’ve heard good things about it and it sounds like it falls under the banner of being a more technical track. I’m looking forward to getting on there and getting racing.

“It's great for me to have the excitement of a new track and challenge to look forward to. It’s something new and new people to work with which is what the doctor ordered really.

“It’s just frustrating that we’re waiting in the wings at the minute for this virus to do one so we can crack on with racing”.

British speedway bosses announced on Tuesday that they were fully committed to racing this season.

The board of directors at the British Speedway Promoters Ltd held a conference call to discuss the way forward and vice chairman Damien Bates said: “We all agreed we remain 100% committed to putting on a season this year at the first available opportunity.

“There are absolutely no thoughts of cancelling the season. We all want to stage the season in whatever format that can take.

“We have people working on fixtures covering all eventualities in terms of dates and potential rider availability.

“If it’s July, August or whenever it may be we are determined to stage racing should the government rules allow us to do so.”

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