The anticipation of the start of the season has now ended, those long winter nights with nothing to do behind us, yes the speedway season has started.

However it has been a disastrous beginning to the season, No.1 Mark Loram out for the season, an opening home defeat to Reading and a thrashing at the hands of the Poole Pirates.

There has been much speculation about who is going to replace Mark Loram, with Jarek Hampel’s name being linked with a return to the club, but unfortunately that was ruled out early on as the rider feels that he has too many commitments on the continent.

The decision of who is going to replace Loram cannot be an easy one for the management team to make, especially with John Louis making the point that Mark is pretty much irreplaceable, especially as the club has searched for a top flight rider for six months as was unable to find one.

With two elite league debutants in the Witches team this year, Loram’s experience and influence will be greatly missed.

Mark has done it all in the world of speedway, with his greatest achievement being the world championship win in 2001.

This makes his presence in the pits even more important. He is much more than just a point scoring, but as an experienced rider, he is someone that the rest of the team can go to for advice.

It seemed as though Mark Loram was going to have a big season in 2007 starting with a maximum in the opening challenge match against Lakeside Hammers and scored double figure in the return fixture.

With no obvious replacement for Loram and two defeats out of two, there would appear not to be to much cause to be optimism for Witches fans.

But there are some positives to be taken from the early stages of the 2007 campaign.

The way the team responded against Reading after losing the inspirational Loram was absolutely brilliant. Undoubtedly the accident could have had a major affect on the team, but they were professional and put their heads down and rode their socks off, taking the meeting into a last heat decider. This shows to the fans that the team has spirit and this is something that the team are going to need in abundance.

Seeing a team-mate have a serious accident must make it hard for the boys to get back on their bikes and carry on the meeting, but they carried on and did themselves proud under what were very difficult circumstances.

Robert Miskowiak has made a very promising start to his third season with the Witches, scoring 12 in the first meeting against Reading and 8+1 in the defeat against Poole, carrying on from where he ended last season.

Knowing that he had to rise to the occasion in 2007, Robert is setting an example to the two other Polish riders who are making their debuts in British speedway.

Marcin Rempala and Zbigniew Suchecki have someone in the pits that they will be able to communicate with easily. Also Roberts’ influence will go deeper than that, he has experience in British speedway and can pass on advice and help in the development of the two youngsters.

The fact that the team this year are young makes the development of the team very exciting.

As the team rides together and get to know each other and how they ride, they can only get better with time. And with the experienced riders in the team there to help carry the young riders and share their wealth of knowledge they have, it can only be a benefit for the Witches.

Chris Louis hopefully will have an injury free season. Louis is a big part of the team and with Mark out, it would be disastrous if the Witches were to lose Chris as well

With last nights meeting being called off, the Witches have a week to wait before their next meeting, which is the good Friday double header against Lakeside Hammers.

Hopefully there will be a big crowd to cheer on the boys at Foxhall against Lakeside and see the season’s first victory.

The Hammers have had a mixed start to the season. Thumping Belle Vue by 24 points, then losing by the same amount to Swindon Robins at Blunsdon on Thursday.

The big threat in their team so far this season is Krzysztof Kasprzak, who has scored double figures in both of the Hammers league fixtures this season and in both the challenge matches against the Witches.

The team who changed their name in the close season, will looking to avenge the defeat they suffered against the witches in the challenge match earlier this month, but the Witches will be confident that they can claim their first victory of the season.

NB: Isaac is not officially connected to the Promotion at Ipswich Speedway and therefore his views are entirely independent of the Promotion.