WOFFINDEN’S BRITISH SPEEDWAY COMEBACK-INJURED JACK HOLDER REPLACEMENT AT SHEFFIELD

Triple world champion Tai Woffinden is back in Britain’s Sports Insure Premiership for the first time since 2016 after replacing the injured Jack Holder at Sheffield.

Woffinden makes his debut at Leicester on Thursday as he steps in for a busy run of matches this August, joining a club he watched from the terraces as a kid.

Woffinden raced for Wolverhampton in British speedway’s top flight from 2009 until 2014, winning the Elite League in 2009, before returning for the end of the 2016 season to help them seal Premiership glory. The Speedway GP star – the biggest signing in Sheffield’s history – can’t wait to help the club’s play-off push.

He said: “Sheffield jumped on the phone and said that Jack was going to be out and asked if I wanted to fill in. One positive thing is that of the boys that I have spoken to about racing in England, no-one has had a bad thing to say whereas five or six years ago that was a different story.

“It’s all cool; the boys are super positive about everything and I’m looking forward to having some fun. It has been a long, long time since I raced around Sheffield, but it’s a sick track and I’m really looking forward to getting out there.

“One of the last times I rode there was probably when I won the Premier League Riders’ Championship in 2008 – it’s a place I have so many memories from. I used to go to Sheffield as a kid and it will probably ignite all those memories from when I was younger. I have a lot of connections there and it’s going to be interesting to get back there for sure.

“I’m looking forward to getting out there and going racing and let’s see how high up in the Premiership we can finish.”

Delighted Tigers boss Damien Bates said: “For Sheffield to sign a rider like Tai Woffinden is a massive coup, not only for us as a club but for British speedway as a whole.

“Tai’s had his reasons for not racing in the UK for a while now but as soon as Steady (Simon Stead – team manager) spoke to him, he was well up for it.

“Jack has had an operation, but we can’t say for definite how long he’ll be out for, and we don’t know how quickly he’ll be ready to come back. August is a busy and crucial month; we’ve got a lot of fixtures coming up and we’ve still got work to do to get into the play-offs. 

“With the July weather causing havoc with the fixture list, it means there are going to be a lot of hectic race nights in the Premiership on Mondays and Thursdays for the next four weeks or so. I don’t want to be struggling to be booking guests or being forced to run rider replacement at No.1.

“With that in mind, we felt it’s better to bring in an injury replacement for Jack for now, have a full team and give ourselves the best chance of making sure we stay in that top four. In Tai, we’ve brought in a genuine, proven world-class rider and it’s going to be great to see him lining up in a Sheffield race jacket.”