ELLIS JOINS IPSWICH WHILE IVERSEN & ROWE SEAL STARS DEALS

Former British champion Adam Ellis is on his way to Ipswich in the 2024 Sports Insure Premiership, while King’s Lynn kick off their team plans by signing Niels-Kristian Iversen and Anders Rowe.Ellis makes the move to Foxhall after being released by eventual Premiership champions Sheffield ahead of the play-offs.The GB international hopes working with Witches team boss Ritchie Hawkins and co-promoter Chris Louis will bring the best out of him as he aims for a stellar 2024 season.He said: “I spoke with Ritchie a few weeks before the season ended, and I didn’t really speak to him again until a few weeks after. “I had a few options, but I am looking forward to going back to Ipswich and I said to most of the guys if I was going to ride in England, I probably wanted to race in Ipswich because I know how Ritchie and Chris work. The track can suit me pretty good, and I am looking forward to it.“The 2023 season wasn’t very good! It was tough in England, but it has been and gone now and there is not a lot I can do about that, so I am just putting it behind me.“It was important knowing that Ritchie and Chris are two guys that are good to work with. I get on well with them and they tell you what they think. They don’t beat around the bush, but they are not rude about it. I know what I am stepping into and that helps a lot. Some of the guys racing there this year told me it was the best run club they have been involved with over the last few years, so it wasn’t a difficult decision.”Meanwhile, returning King’s Lynn boss Rob Lyon admits he isn’t expecting No.1 performances from Iversen, but still backs the former world No.3 make an impact in 2024.“Niels does have quite an attractive average (6.64), and I know we always say that about certain riders, but he did finish the season so strongly this year.“He had been at No.1 and No.5 for a lot of the year and struggled by his standards. The couldn’t get set up right or settled in properly, and we actually had heart-to-talks with him around two-thirds of the way through the season.“He stuck at it and when he moved to No.2, when we had quality in other areas, it took the pressure off him, and we realised what a hell of a No.2 he is!“In reality, he’s better than that, but he will come into the team effectively as a second string/third heat leader, and I think he’s more than capable of being a solid performer in that position.“Niels isn’t a No.1 anymore and he knows that – but he certainly offers a lot in the middle of the team. He’s got good connections with King’s Lynn in the past, and probably for the first time in my dealings with him, he was the one who approached us and said he wanted to come back next year.”Lyon also hopes to build on having Rowe as their rising star for the second straight season. He said: “The Rising Star situation is slightly different in that you have the option to retain the rider you had in the previous year, and Anders was a no-brainer in lots of ways.“He had some terrific meetings at King’s Lynn towards the end of the year, and I really see him as a rider who has a future in the sport. I think it gives us a solid start at reserve and as long as he can have an injury-free season I think he’ll be fine, and he’ll contribute greatly to our performances.”

Discover

WOZNIAK HAILS HANCOCK AS THEY TEAM UP IN SPEEDWAY GP

Polish star Szymon Wozniak admits you can’t buy FIM Speedway Grand Prix experience, but he hopes four-time world champion Greg Hancock can bring it into his team in 2024.The Gorzow and Indianerna rider makes his Speedway GP debut next year after finishing third at the 2023 FIM GP Challenge in Gislaved to earn qualification.Wozniak has raced just three Speedway GP rounds – all of them as a wild card in Gorzow – so he turned to the man who has raced more SGPs than any other rider in history, recruiting him as a coach for 2024.Hancock competed in a record 218 Speedway GPs, winning 21 of them, before racing his final round in October 2018, and Wozniak hopes to tap into his knowledge next year.He said: “When I qualified to Speedway GP, I just asked myself what my strong points were and what I needed to look for to improve, and my experience in Speedway GP is quite poor. I needed to get that experience, but you can’t buy it at the shop!“I just thought about what I could do to get that experience and take it into the GP. The idea was to start working with someone who has big experience in Speedway GP, and I started to think about Greg. Someone helped me to get in contact with Greg and ask if he was interested or not in working with me. Greg answered that he was, and we started to talk directly. After a few calls and a few conversations, we did a deal and now we are moving forward with our agreement.”Wozniak revealed half a season racing alongside Hancock for Polish club Bydgoszcz in 2013 left a big impression. “I have really good memories of being together in the same team as Greg,” he said. “I was pretty young at the time, and he didn’t have to help me, but he gave me a lot of good advice about the racing, preparation and everything.“I remember that advice even now. There were some good lessons, and I am sure it will be awesome to work with Greg for the whole season.“It will be awesome in many ways – practising with Greg and even just talking to him is pretty good. He knows speedway so well and he knows everything about the setups and bikes. Of course, he knows all about the psychology of speedway as well.“I think it’s really important to have a person like that on your side when you go into the GP with little experience. That’s what I felt I needed to bring to my team as I go into my first full-time Speedway GP season. And he’s a four-time individual world champion, so I can’t imagine who else I could have asked to work with me to make things even better. I can’t wait to start working with Greg. “Even in our talks on the phone, it’s quite awesome to get all this information and spend time with a person like him.”A number of riders now work with a coach or advisor in the pits, tasked with keeping an eye on track conditions and possible setup changes that may be needed. Wozniak hopes Hancock can offer this.He said: “I think it will be great to have a person like Greg in my team, who has the time and knowledge to look at the track during and before the meeting and go on the track walk with me and talk about the track. “He can hopefully advise me about the setup, racing lines and my preparations. That’s really useful and I am sure having that type of person in my team will help me compete against more experienced riders in the GP.”

Discover

SPEEDWAY GP QUIZ | PICK OF THE PODIUM

Discover

VIDEO: SPEEDWAY GP BEST OF 2023 | TOP 5 OVERTAKES

Relive the best FIM Speedway Grand Prix passes of 2023 in this epic top five - a couple of Bartosz Zmarzlik moments may have made the list!

Discover

REW RETURNS TO IPSWICH FOR 2024

FIM SGP2 star Keynan Rew says Ipswich was the ideal place to launch his British career as he returns to Witches colours for 2024.Rew started his European career in Poland but was tempted to make his debut in the Sports Insure Premiership with Ipswich in 2023, helping the Witches win the Knockout Cup and reach the Premiership Grand Final, which they narrowly lost to Sheffield.Rew was pleased he picked Ipswich as his first UK club and can’t wait to return, joining forces with Speedway GP star Jason Doyle once again.He told the club’s website: “It was always the plan to be back at Ipswich next season. I really enjoyed my first year there and couldn’t have started at a better place in Britain. Chris (Louis) and Ritchie (Hawkins) were awesome to work with in my first year and very helpful, so I’m very grateful to be back next season.“It was definitely a learning curve for me. There were ups and downs as there always are. It was my first season here so there was a lot to learn, and I think I learned a lot. “Hopefully I can take that forward and, from a team perspective, it was awesome to win the Knockout Cup. We just missed out on the league, which was a bummer, but there is always next year.“It was an awesome feeling to win the Knockout Cup at home in Ipswich in the second leg. I feel like it was a present for Chris and for all of the hard work the boys put in this season. We all got along great, and it was a great bunch of guys and there was a good atmosphere. Of course, it was a bummer to lose out in the play-off final, but it is what it is.“Everyone sets themselves goals for their season and I have many that I would like to achieve. I would like to come back and finish what we started; it would be cool to push for that league title.”Rew missed out on an FIM SGP2 medal by one point, finishing fourth in the FIM Speedway Under-21 World Championship. He hopes to qualify for the three-round series once again and become Australia’s first world junior champion since Jaimon Lidsey in 2020.He said: “It was my first year in SGP2, so it was good to qualify for that. I came up a little bit short in the end with the goals I would have liked to achieve. “It makes me strive for bigger things next year, so hopefully I can push on. I’ve got to do the qualifiers again, but hopefully I can get through that, and the goal is to be a World Under-21 champion. I will work my hardest and hopefully we can get there.”

Discover