PETERBOROUGH have swooped for 2017 British Champion Craig Cook – to complete a power-packed Premiership heat-leader trio.
Cook, who rode for Panthers in the second tier for much of the 2016 season, has made the move to rejoin the club in the top flight after a long association with Belle Vue.
And with Chris Harris and skipper Hans Andersen also already confirmed, it gives fans an exciting trio of familiar faces to spearhead the charge at the highest level.
Cook followed up his British title by qualifying for the 2018 Grand Prix series, where the main highlight was a superb performance at Cardiff, and he’s also been a regular member of the Great Britain set-up in recent years.
Promoter Ged Rathbone said: “I think to get Craig Cook back here shows just what we’ve done as a club over the last few years.
“We worked with him in 2016, he rode for us and he wants to come back – and we’re really looking forward to working with him again.
“He’s been at Belle Vue for a long time, and hopefully this will also re-ignite him in some ways. He’s still determined to be the very best and get back into the GPs having ridden at the highest level of the sport, and I really expect him to produce the goods for us.
“This will be a good move for him. He knows the supporters, he’s liked by the supporters and he wants to come here and win.
“Craig completes a very strong top three, yet none of them are on an average of over eight, so it also allows us to build for some strength-in-depth.
“It’s another signing which shows our intentions as a club and as a management team. Buster (Keith Chapman) has let us get on with what we want to do - we’ve been given a very realistic budget to build a team, and he’s trusted us to get on with it.
“Team-building has all been done by the management team so we’ve carried on in exactly the same way that we have done previously, very much in the Peterborough mould. We want to compete and we want to win.
“We haven’t paid silly money for riders or offered them silly contracts. We’ve got riders who want to ride for Peterborough Speedway because of the ethos we have at the club.”
Panthers expect to name their fourth signing for next season later this week.