Baek joins The Gladiators

Plymouth Gladiators have made a significant change as they head into a busy August which could make or break their season by replacing Kyle Newman with talented Dane Patrick Baek.

The 22-year-old has been recommended to the club by legendary Danish rider Bjarne Pedersen, who rode for Plymouth in the summer of 2021 and will hopefully provide the extra points the Gladiators need to turn recent defeats in to victories.

“Bjarne thinks he will have a great career in the sport, but he has not reached the potential he has,” Gladiators promoter Mark Phillips said. “Patrick is a promising young Danish rider and hopefully he can kick on with his career at Plymouth and pick up points on the road as well as at home.

“It is never good news to get rid of a rider, but Kyle’s away performances haven’t really come into play this year. Kyle has underperformed away from home at the moment and we do need a rider that is able to score four or five points away as well as four or five points at home, so this is the main reason Kyle has been released – due to his lack of form on away tracks and several malfunctions this season.

“We wish Kyle all the best and we hope he has a great future in the sport, but this is a critical time in the league fixtures and we feel we must take a chance somewhere.”

Newman, 32, who is based in Poole, ends a second stint with Plymouth having ridden for the club under its previous guise as the Plymouth Devils from 2014 to 2016. This season, though, he has managed just 57 points from 11 meetings with his green sheet average just 3.05 away from home, compared to 4.96 at home.

The change of Newman in the Gladiators team is unlikely to be the only change as the search continues for an adequate replacement for injured number one Nico Covatti, whose season is over after he suffered a broken wrist in the recent defeat at Poole.

“We are still avidly looking for a number one, but those are not available to us at the moment,” Phillips said. “Nico had a problem with his leg when he first came to Britain and jarred it at Poole.

“He returned against Edinburgh where he scored double figures and showed he could be a positive heat leader for the club, he then went to Poole again two weeks ago and due to the state of the track, he re-broke his wrist. It snapped the plate in his wrist and pulled the screws out giving him a fresh break, which means he’ll be out for the rest of the season.

“Drew Kemp is signed for Berwick, so that isn’t an option and he is not a guest for this weekend as he is riding in Poland. At the time of going to press, Garry (May) has not been able to secure a guest yet for Scunthorpe away and Scunthorpe home on Saturday, but he is trying very hard to do so.”

Meanwhile, there has been some rearrangement to the Gladiators’ fixture list in August. The fixtures for the month are: Scunthorpe (A, August 2), Scunthorpe (H, 3), Oxford (A, 7), Glasgow (H, 10), GB Youth Series (H, 13), Redcar (A, 23), Poole (H, 24) and Oxford (H, 31).