SWINDON Robins are “super excited” for speedway’s return, whenever that might be.

Like virtually all of their counterparts the sport is on hold as the coronavirus crisis grows, with the next meeting on what the future might hold pencilled in for April 15.

The hold-up came agonisingly as the season was about to get under way. Only the Benevolent Fund Bonanza in Scunthorpe went ahead before the brakes were put on.

For Robins especially the anticipation was high.

Coming off the back of last year’s Premiership and Supporters’ Cup double, they had retained five members of their championship team, including big guns Jason Doyle and Troy Batchelor.

And co-promoter Lee Kilby says the vibe around the Abbey Stadium is nevertheless better than ever after a winter full of positive news.

“We got our team picked nice and early,” he said. “We pretty much got that done before Christmas.

“It was well documented we wanted to keep all seven riders from last season, but that wasn’t possible because team-building rules didn’t allow us to do that.

“So we lost Toby (Musielak) and Claus (Vissing) from the championship team, which was sad because they’re two terrific guys that did everything for us last year, and Toby a couple of years previously as well.

“We brought in Jordan Stewart, a young Australian, very exciting, and Anders Rowe who is a super exciting local lad.

“Everyone is so excited about the team. Obviously the track had the changes it had last year and was going to be even better, that was absolutely brilliant.

“Then we got the news the stadium was going to happen in the near future as well. Season ticket sales were really strong; again we had excellent support from our sponsors as we always get at Swindon, we’re incredibly lucky to have such great sponsors.

“Then the brakes were put on by this.

“We hope the pause button has been hit and that’s all it is, and when we get back on track, whether that’s May, June or July, everyone’s chomping at the bit ready to go again because we’ve missed it so much.”

Excitement was high across the rest of the league as well.

Three-time world champion Jason Crump will make a stunning return to the track with Ipswich Witches, while newly promoted Sheffield Tigers pulled off a coup in signing Nicki Pedersen.

“It’s my job, it’s my life, I love everything in it, and it’s the same for so many people,” Kilby added.

“For so many people speedway is their sport and to have that paused is really difficult, because you wait all winter, once you start to announce your team the excitement starts to build and then you look at who else is getting signed and that gets you excited.

“The fact that we had riders of the calibre of Nicki Pedersen, Jason Crump and Peter Kildemand coming back to the league this year, it meant every club had a headline rider pretty much.

“We were super excited about it, and we still are, it’s just a period of pause that we’ve all got to do.”