FORMER Australian Champion Sam Masters has joined Leicester for the 2024 Sports Insure Premiership campaign.
Masters, 32, is an established track specialist at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena, Beaumont Park, where he has often put in high-scoring displays.
He makes the switch across the Midlands after being with Wolverhampton in the top-flight ever since 2016, that spell only being broken by the cancelled season due to Covid in 2020.
But prior to that, he did have a spell with the Lions as a doubling-up rider in 2015 and impressed over ten appearances in the old Elite League.
Masters became available for a move due to the sad closure of Wolverhampton’s Monmore Green stadium to speedway, and all at Leicester continue to wish our neighbours well as they seek to secure an alternative venue.
Having ended the season with a 7.13 average – which has actually dropped due mainly to a number of niggling injuries in the last couple of years – Masters should be capable of providing further top-end power for the Watling JCB Lions alongside No.1 Max Fricke.
Manager Stewart Dickson said: “I’ve known Sam for a long time. He was a big target when I was at Glasgow, and I lost out to Somerset when he first came over, and then he was at Edinburgh for a lot of years so we know each other very well.
“We’ve never actually been team manager and rider before apart from some guest bookings, but we’ve always stayed in touch and we get on pretty well.
“Sam started last season on an 8.00 average, we get him on 7.13 and I think he’s very good value on that.
“He didn’t have as good a season this year as he’d had for the previous two or three years, and whilst it’s a big shame under the circumstances that he’s coming here, because of what’s happened at Wolverhampton, I do think a change of track will do him the world of good.
“I’m looking forward to him coming in, and he should be pushing to get back to the 8.00 average that he had been reaching for Wolves in the previous few seasons.
“I know another couple of tracks were interested, but he was well up for coming to Leicester, and that was pleasing to hear, and if it all works out I think he’ll form part of a very strong heat-leader trio at home.”
The Lions expect to have more news to announce during Sunday’s Open Day, which gets underway at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena, Beaumont Part at midday, with admission free.
*LEICESTER have been handed a KO Cup quarter-final tie with holders Ipswich – in a repeat of their 2023 encounter at the same stage of the competition.
The Watling JCB Lions held the Witches to a six-point margin of victory at Foxhall but were unable to contain the Suffolk side back at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena as Ipswich won by ten points overall and went on to take the silverware.
The winners of the tie will face Birmingham in the semi-finals, with the other last-four encounter seeing King’s Lynn face the winners of the Belle Vue/Sheffield quarter-final.
