Mildenhall Fen Tigers miserable season just got worse this week with the news from Holland that recent capture Theo Pijper is sidelined following engine problems.

The former Edinburgh rider, who started the 2008 season in the Elite League at Swindon, reluctantly has had to pull out of the weekend fixtures on the club’s northern tour to Workington and Glasgow.

He suffered two major engine blow –ups in the big international meeting in France at the weekend and his motors are now with his engine tuner being repaired. This is a major blow to the Fen Tigers as Pijper was starting to put together some form after coming back from a broken collarbone.

It has left promoter Simon Barton and team boss Laurence Rogers searching for another new rider with replacements for the departed Kaj Laukkanen and retired Robbie Kessler already being sought.

Rogers has been scouring the world for replacements and thought he had two captures sorted out but both riders were unable to commit sufficient equipment to race in the UK and he has had to turn his attentions elsewhere.

He explains, “ I had hoped to have had at least one if not two new faces in place for the Northern tour but had to change direction when these failed to happen. I am hoping that a replacement for Robbie may now be in place by our next home meeting on Sunday 27th July whilst replacing Kaj is proving a difficult one to crack despite trying from all angles but I am still working on it.”

“The loss of Theo this week though left us with a dilemma of tracking a Conference League guest for him at Workington and Glasgow or altering our team declaration and bringing in another rider. Simon and I decided on the latter option and we have signed former Newport rider Marek Mroz and he is driving from Poland to be with us this weekend. We must thank him for his persistence in contacting us and we hope that he will settle in quickly and having a fellow countryman in Michal Rajkowski in our side will hopefully help him.”

“The change is naturally to be ratified by the controlling body, the BSPA, but hopefully in our current plight they will agree the move. Once Theo has his engines sorted we can then look to re-introducing him into our 1-7.”

“I am keeping my fingers crossed that by the time August is here we may be able to track our own 1 to 7 again with no guests or rider-replacement!!”