Broken leg gives Bears a headache
STANDIN manager Gavin Parr admits his first week in charge of Redcar Bears has been “a baptism of fire” after spending most of it trying to rebuild a team shattered by a serious injury to one of its star riders.
Erik Riss - the twice world longtrack champion and 2019 Championship Riders title winner - broke his left leg in a freak accident at Bydgoszcz in Poland on Sunday and could be out for the remainder of the season.
The Bears, still pushing for honours on three fronts, are allowed a facility to replace their German star.
However, with so many events going on across the continent, Parr has stressed that finding capable guest riders is proving difficult ahead of matches on successive nights this weekend.
Redcar visit Scunthorpe in the recently-launched Jubilee League - a mid-summer competition split into regional groups with winners progressing to a three team final - on Friday, then travel on to face Leicester 24 hours later. The Bears lead the mini-group at the moment after a convincing home victory over Championship table-toppers Leicester but Parr says plugging the void left by Riss is proving a nightmare.
He explained: “I’ve tried everyone but this time of year it’s almost impossible to find riders of the right standard who are available.
“We can use rider replacement (where any of Riss’ Bears’ team-mates can have take one of his programmed rides) but that puts you under unnecessary pressure as it relies on noone having a bad meeting and also causes extra trouble if, God forbid, something else happens.”
Reflecting on the injury, Parr added: “Erik messaged us when he was on the way to hospital saying he had had a big crash.
“Later we heard he had broken his ankle and I think we had a problem in translation from Polish as that turned out to be the lower leg.”
Riss flew back for surgery in his native Germany on Monday and Parr continued: “We are obviously hopeful that, however serious any injury of that kind is, it is not a bad break and he might be back before the end of the season.”
Having exhausted his search by trying to obtain the services of reigning British Champion Adam Ellis, Parr is now resigned to using rider replacement in Lincolnshire on Friday.
However, he has managed to sign up Australian Justin Sedgmen, briefly a Bears’ rider back in 2012 and now racing for Birmingham, when Redcar appear at Leicester in the match which is likely to decide which team progresses to the Sheffield staged final.