The Warriors have made a surprise move to re-introduce 2018 Warrior and Smallbrook specialist Scott Campos in place of Ryan Terry-Daley.
Last season the experienced Campos was a popular figure with both team mates and supporters and only lost his spot on the Island when team building averages for 2019 were reduced by the speedway authorities. He was quickly snapped up by Plymouth and on two visits to Smallbrook this season with the Gladiators has posted nineteen crucial and match winning points, however overall the move West has not worked out as the Devon club had hoped and they stood Campos down last week.
With Campos offering an advantageous average of 4.50 and a proven scoring record on the Island, the Warriors management were faced with a tough decision on whether to ‘stick or twist’ and decided to act with the unfortunate Terry-Daley signing off with paid six points in the four point league defeat against Cradley on Monday evening.
Speaking on behalf of the Isle of Wight management, co-promoter Barry Bishop said, “We have made the difficult decision to release Ryan Terry-Daley. This is absolutely no reflection on him, but a chance has came about whereby we are able to bring the Warriors 2018 vice captain Scott Campos back to the Island and that opportunity was too big of an opportunity to turn down.
When we had to release Scott during the close season it was one of the most difficult calls we had to make, because at the end of the 2018 season, Scott was always in our plans for 2019. It wasn't until the National League AGM when the lower points limit was confirmed, that we realised we would have to make a real difficult decision and release one of the riders that we wanted to include.
Scott was the perfect gentleman at the time, and although both parties were disappointed, he understood that speedway is a numbers game and that dropping him wasn’t a reflection on him. We now find ourselves in exactly the same scenario with Ryan and it is purely down to numbers.
We are very excited about welcoming Scott back to Smallbrook, and looking forward to see him blasting around the boards on Thursday nights and in the meantime thank Ryan for his efforts in 2019 and wish him the very best for the future, and the rest of the 2019 season when we hope that Ryan will be able to make some of our open meetings”.