Post by sheffielddons on Jun 22, 2015 11:56:25 GMT
As the Sheffield Dons make their way in the sport everything is new for all involved. Whilst still club owner Andy Dixon will no longer be holding the day-to-day reigns as his son James will be taking over as manager.
Andy said, "James is young so I'll very much be in the background but all team decisions are 100% in his hands - so blame it on him if we don't win every week! Seriously though he has ambition to bring good riders and good performances here and he's made a start on putting a team together already. Our aim is to help riders make the step up the leagues - to evolve from Academy to the big leagues - but James is determined we are going to win meetings while we do it!
Although everything is new here it's a familiar face who'll be leading the side. Simon Stevens joined me at Owlerton as a raw 16 year old in the bottom division and has been with us all the way through. He had a testimonial back in 2011 and amazingly this will be his 16th year as an asset with us! He was a key performer in our AL, PL and 2 UL wins aswell as achieving much more with us and more than earning his place in the speedway Hall of Fame. He's got so much experience he can pass on to the young side we're looking to build and the other riders can only benefit from spending time with him, on and off the track.
In addition the team will include 20 year old Pole Lukasz Szymkowiak who will start on a 6.00 average. Lukasz is a bit of an unknown quantity but we'll give him time to bed in and see how he goes. He'll be coming over soon and we'll get him straight to work spending time with Gary Carr and Simon at the track so I'm sure he'll be ready to hit the ground running when the season starts.
We hope is we can announce 2 more team members soon and tentative discussions are taking place with another promising young rider so we'll see how that develops. We'll just have to wait and see what develops, take stock of where we are and then see who is around to finish our 7. There are plenty of good riders around and James has assured me he's good enough at his sums to make sure we start with a very competitive side."
Andy said, "James is young so I'll very much be in the background but all team decisions are 100% in his hands - so blame it on him if we don't win every week! Seriously though he has ambition to bring good riders and good performances here and he's made a start on putting a team together already. Our aim is to help riders make the step up the leagues - to evolve from Academy to the big leagues - but James is determined we are going to win meetings while we do it!
Although everything is new here it's a familiar face who'll be leading the side. Simon Stevens joined me at Owlerton as a raw 16 year old in the bottom division and has been with us all the way through. He had a testimonial back in 2011 and amazingly this will be his 16th year as an asset with us! He was a key performer in our AL, PL and 2 UL wins aswell as achieving much more with us and more than earning his place in the speedway Hall of Fame. He's got so much experience he can pass on to the young side we're looking to build and the other riders can only benefit from spending time with him, on and off the track.
In addition the team will include 20 year old Pole Lukasz Szymkowiak who will start on a 6.00 average. Lukasz is a bit of an unknown quantity but we'll give him time to bed in and see how he goes. He'll be coming over soon and we'll get him straight to work spending time with Gary Carr and Simon at the track so I'm sure he'll be ready to hit the ground running when the season starts.
We hope is we can announce 2 more team members soon and tentative discussions are taking place with another promising young rider so we'll see how that develops. We'll just have to wait and see what develops, take stock of where we are and then see who is around to finish our 7. There are plenty of good riders around and James has assured me he's good enough at his sums to make sure we start with a very competitive side."