FORMER Glasgow star David Howe is on the comeback trail – starting with next week’s Ben Fund Bonanza.
The former British Under-21 Champion has signed up for the season opener at the Peugeot Ashfield Stadium on Sunday, March 12.
He replaces Ty Proctor, who won’t be over from his native Australia in time for the meeting.
Howe retired from the sport in 2015, having spent a few weeks with the Tigers, after persistent injuries forced him out.
But he has recently returned to a bike and plans to use the Ben Fund to show what he’s capable of – and give Glasgow fans a glimpse of the rider he used to be.
Howe said of his comeback: “There was nothing in my mind until September last year. Once I realised I’d come to a place where I needed to step away (in 2015) I kind of put all my feelings in this little metaphorical box. If you tell yourself enough, you believe it don’t you?
“More than a year went by, and I was just helping out the ACU at the European Grasstrack Championships. I was on the start line, helping Andrew Appleton, and for a split second I thought, ‘I wish I was on the start line’.
“The box was opened and it went from there. It was seriously only planned to do a very small grasstrack comeback, just do a few club meetings, but within the week that changed.
“It kind of snowballed but still speedway wasn’t on the cards at all, just a few longtracks. I had a ride recently just to get race fit, but it appears that time heals mental and physical ills, because I felt like a slightly older version of the David from years ago.
“It wasn’t so much the body had healed enough, I think the brain had. You can overcome physical injuries but it’s very difficult to overcome a mental one until it’s ready.
“I had such a good time riding the bike, I was enjoying it and having fun, so I thought well, if this is the case, I can’t put it off – I don’t want to look back in five years and say I wish I’d done it, and it’s kind of taken off from there. I’m having another slide on Sunday and very much looking forward to it.”
Howe said he wanted to play his part in aiding a cause that has aided him in the past.
He said: “The Ben Fund have helped me throughout my career, and that’s the reason I contacted Paul Ackroyd last week. I know what it’s like running a meeting, people think it’s easy to get 16 riders together at one time but it isn’t. So I said, if you need someone at the last minute, I’ll do it.
“If I can go there and have a reasonable meeting, score a couple of points, I’ll be happy. It’s a decent line-up, but it may put me in the shop window and also loosen me up for the other meetings I do have in March.
“I’m doing Simon Lambert’s meeting, that was the one meeting I always planning to do because he asked me, and I’m doing the meeting at Redcar. That gives me the opportunity to prove to myself and others that I can still do it.
“If something comes in speedway then fantastic, I’ll be ready; if it doesn’t then I’ll carry on with my plans as they were.
“It would be nice to show the Glasgow fans that I am better than I was the few weeks I rode for them. I shouldn’t have been there, the club were fully aware of how I was but we hoped a change of environment would do the trick. It would be nice to go and meet the fans and management again because they were brilliant.”
There is one further name to be announced for the Bonanza, and that will be revealed by Ackroyd on Sunday when he appears on the Tigers Live Facebook show from 7pm.