Glasgow Tigers will return to their traditional Friday race night for the first time since the 1980s, putting them in direct opposition to arch rivals, Edinburgh Monarchs.
Tigers have been granted permission to bring racing forward by a further 24 hours ,their second race day change in two seasons following the switch from Sunday to Saturday last season.
The new race night will come into force in time for the 2018 campaign, which gets under way next March.
The club has been trying since 2013 to secure a move back to Friday nights, which was the club’s race night between the mid-1960s and 1989, before they moved to Sundays.
Club co-owner Gerry Facenna said: “We’ve made it pretty clear from the day we got involved at the club that our preferred race day is a Friday, and we’re delighted to be moving to Friday nights in what will be our fourth season at the helm.
“We firmly believe that our best chance of growing our fan base is to race on Fridays, and the market research we have carried out backs this up.
“Whilst we only cross over with the football season at the start and end of our season, we know a lot of people in Glasgow follow football and attend matches, which more often than not fall on a Saturday.
“When we moved from a Sunday afternoon to a Saturday night last season, we were concerned that the number of young supporters attending would drop, however this never happened.
“In fact, towards the end of the season, we’d regularly have over 100 kids out racing against Roary, our Tiger mascot. I think everyone who attends speedway believes that it is much more atmospheric under floodlights, and it’s also much easier to prepare and manage the racing surface.
“Another important aspect for us is the corporate hospitality side of speedway, and moving to Fridays means it’ll become easier for us to sell packages to companies, who can invite their customers along.
“From personal experience, if I am invited to an evening event through work, I would be much happier to go on a Friday, as it would just feel like an extension to work, as opposed to giving up family time during the rest of the weekend.”
Experienced news, business, arts, sport and travel journalist. Food critic and managing editor of a well-established food and travel website. Also a magazine editor of publications with circulations of up to 200,000 and managing director of a long-established PR/marketing company with a string of blue-chip clients in its CV. Former communications lecturer at a Scottish university and social media specialist for a string of successful and busy SMEs.
