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NEWCASTLE stalwart Christian Henry is to rejoin the club this season as the final confirmed member of the Diamonds’ septet.The Brough Park club have also announced the appointment of Ludvig Lindgren as captain, whilst director Alan Hedley’s Sapphire Engineering company will continue as main team sponsors.Co-promoter George English said: “We will be going into the 2015 season with an extremely youthful looking squad so the last member of the septet, our old mate Christian Henry, will add that touch of experience to the team that the younger riders will be able to draw upon.“Christian has been with us for a number of spells, and we’re delighted to welcome him back again this year as he has a habit of hitting his career-best form on Tyneside and certainly knows how to race at Brough Park which is another area he can advise the younger elements of the seven.”(SPEEDWAY 2)

BUXTON have finalised their line-up for the 2015 National League season with the signing of Ben Hopwood.The locally-based rider spent last year with Stoke and also had a spell at reserve in the Elite League with eventual champions Poole.Hopwood said: “This move may surprise a few people as they might not think Hi-Edge is one of my favourite tracks, but I’ve always scored well there and am looking forward to riding it regularly.“I’ve ridden the tracks at this level and know what it takes to win races. I’m particularly looking forward to linking up with Tony (Atkin) and Ryan (Blacklock) who I have known for a while, and one thing is for certain - I can assure Buxton supporters of 100 per cent effort.”

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KENT have named the final two members of their squad – but have deferred a decision on who will take the No.7 team place at the start of the National League season.Local duo Jamie Couzins and Adam Sheppard were regular second-halvers at Central Park last year and Kings boss Chris Hunt will monitor their progress before naming his starting line-up.Hunt said: “The decision to require each club competing in the National League this coming season to name a squad of eight riders represents both a challenge and an opportunity: a challenge in terms of picking the correct personnel and an opportunity for more riders to get involving vying for a team place. “More than anything, it means within the reserve berths it’s more like a squad system, and also it means we can name our eight now – and we’re happy to have been able to finalise this now in mid-January – but not make definite decisions about our exact starting seven until we’ve had a good chance to see the lads in action at our pre-season Media and Sponsors Day a week before we open at home at Easter.”