The Allied Vehicles Tigers have again turned to Scandinavia to find some fresh talent and scoring power to boost the team in the final months of this season.
With two Danes already in the side and performing well, this time the club have scanned neighbouring Sweden to find the right man to become Ashfield’s next action hero.
We are delighted to announce that we have now signed 20 year old Victor Palovaara who will make his British speedway debut for Tigers at Berwick on Saturday night, before making his home debut in Monday night’s league clash with Scunthorpe (start time 7:15pm).
Victor first came to attention when he narrowly failed to qualify in a 3 rider race-off from the World U21 Championship Semi-Final round held at Leicester earlier this season. More recently Victor helped his nation qualify for the World U21 Team Final alongside Poland, Czech republic and Australia.
The rider currently races in esteemed company in both Sweden (for Valsarna) and Denmark (Grindsted) however has been keen to broaden his experience by riding in Britain too, and is highly excited about now becoming a Glasgow rider.
He does arrive with an initial assessed 7.00 average, and unfortunately given our fresh set of team figures, this will earn him the No.1 race jacket right from the off! Whilst this isn’t ideal given that we would have preferred to ease any initial pressure on the lad, the club have little option at the moment given that we have been forced into an immediate team change due to unfortunate circumstances concerning Christian Henry.
Christian, who we have a lot of time for having served the Tigers well in the past, suffered a recurrence of his recent concussion during Sunday’s home defeat to Berwick with the result that he has been signed-off for a further 28 day minimum period. He has had an exceptionally tough time of things since joining the Tigers in early June, and the combination of his injuries and misfortune has certainly also lowered his confidence and enthusiasm.
Having only just come through a period of reliance on Rider Replacement for Christian and/or Dimitri, the club do not, if it can be helped, wish to revert to that facility for the remainder of the season given its strain on the remaining riders. A decision therefore was taken to re-declare our 1-7 to now feature Victor as replacement for Christian. Naturally we expect supporters will join us in wishing Christian both a speedy recovery and all the very best in the future in whatever he chooses to do. Hopefully we will get the chance to say farewell at a future meeting this season.
Speaking about the latest team changes, Glasgow co-promoter Colin Hamilton said:
“We are very happy to have secured the services of another young and exciting rider in the form of Victor Palovaara, and with his experience in riding in Sweden and Denmark we are very hopeful that he will adapt quickly to the different tracks and demands of Premier League racing.
It is perhaps not ideal that Victor has to debut as our No.1 however I’m sure he will add some much needed bite to the side and help us freshen things up a little. Alongside Anders, Kasper and Dimitri we have a fairly youthful and exciting looking side and much for our supporters to look forward to.
He replaces Christian Henry who has been very unlucky on the injury front since re-joining Tigers a few months ago. We wish Christian a full and speedy recovery and thank him for his brief spell with us this season.”
We are sure you will also join us in warmly welcoming Victor to Glasgow.
<with thanks to Roger Hultgren/Hulk Foto for supplying photos of Victor>