King's Lynn Stars could have a trump points machine at reserve berth
Ty Proctor will start the 2020 Premiership speedway season at reserve for the King's Lynn Stars and can be a “points machine” there, the Lynn News can exclusively reveal.
Co-promoter Dale Allitt this week confirmed that the experienced former Lynn vice-captain, who returned to the club this winter, will fill one of the two reserve berths alongside young new signing Michael Hartel.
Allitt believes Australian Proctor and the 21-year-old German Hartel will form a potent number six and seven combination in the Adrian Flux Arena side's lower order.
Allitt said: “Ty is going to start at reserve. When you build a team, one of the things we found from last year that we weren't strong enough at the start of the year with only one major heat leader.
“So with having Craig (former Belle Vue heat leader Cook, who Lynn signed midway through the previous campaign) and having Robert (skipper Lambert) there and having Ty at reserve – he's got lots of experience. He's fantastic at reserve.
“When you look at Heat 2 and take a look across and there's Ty Proctor, he should be a points machine.”
Proctor was superb in 2018; but 2019 saw things go wrong for him and many of the other Stars team members, while Allitt had to stand down as a long-serving Lynn team boss due to illness at the beginning of last year.
Allitt says circumstances that dogged the Aussie in 2019 caused his decline, but with all that behind him he is on a false average – and the co-promoter added: “To be fair, things happen for a reason.
“At the end of the day speedway riders, like everybody else, are human beings. Things affect them; pressures affect them; circumstances affect them.
“There was so much upheaval last year, with what we had at the beginning of the year, which couldn't be helped.
“I think with Ty, things started going wrong in the winter. He got injured at the end of the season with his shoulder, which meant he couldn't do training in the winter.
“He then lost a main sponsor in the winter. Workington closed, which held his visa, so he then had to fork out five grand for another visa, so there were lots of little things that caused a big issue.
“When Erik (Riss) got inured everyone knew Erik would come back, so that put more pressure (on Ty) because riders were riding for their places. So that's what happened.
“Ty is a six-and-a-half point rider from the year before, on a 4.4 average now, so it means we're strong at reserve.”
