National no go for Hammers

The Lakeside Hammers have confirmed that they will not be entering a Young Hammers side in next season’s National League but will be staging Challenge Meetings at that level during the course of the season.

Explaining the decision the Hammers Co Promoter Jon Cook says: “This is purely down to economics. We have had a good long hard look at things and sadly the numbers don’t add up at this time for a full season of racing in the National League. Whilst we would have expected greater support for a sole team we can’t escape the fact that, even with a reduced rent and funds from our Training Schools, our half season last year still ran up a loss of over £8500 and, obviously, that sort of risk doubled has the potential of impacting negatively upon the Elite League side of our operation.

“In its current structure for teams with a professional League first team, the National League is clearly better suited to teams that have reduced costs by owning their own venues and I have great respect for clubs like Belle Vue who try to buck that trend. We will, however, be staging a few meetings at a slightly lower level for our trainees plus young Shane (Hazelden) and Marc (Owen) and will look to run these events on the days of the Training Schools, possibly backed by quad racing or something similar. In future years, as our riders mature, we will look again at the National League plus we will be increasing our training programmes, adding to the excellent work of George and Linda Barclay and the ‘Ride N Slide’ days over 2012, with further announcements to follow in the New Year.”