PLYMOUTH have booked Paco Castagna to guest at No.1 in their Cab Direct Championship opener against Workington.
Castagna comes in for the Gladiators with Nico Covatti still unfit to resume racing following his winter crash in Argentina - live on BSN tonight.
Both sides otherwise track their regular line-ups with Plymouth having impressed in their home matches so far.
The Comets, meanwhile, go into the meeting having collected the aggregate point from their recent clashes with defending champions Glasgow.
Castagna is one of the most flamboyant riders in the world and admits he has worked hard with a sports psychologist.
He said: “It was very difficult when I was a very young kid. My father was such a successful rider.
“He wasn’t a guy who came over to England and just did a little bit. He was actually a top International for so many years.
“Plus the fact he was known everywhere for being a very hard rider. I’m just not the same sort of rider.
“A lot of people try to compare me. That was definitely the hardest thing to deal with when I first came over to the UK.
“When Ipswich and then Sheffield signed me I was always the ‘son of’. Everybody then expected to see Armando on the track.
“There was a lot of work behind the scenes to help me through it. I got the help from sports psychologists to try and overcome that sort of thing.
“I worked on my mental approach with psychologists for many years but not right now but I think I will again soon.
“It is such a difficult sport in that minute of racing you need to stop thinking about things that are not important. You need to focus and sometimes that means you need help from the outside.”
PLYMOUTH: Paco Castagna, Alfie Bowtell, Dan Thompson, Kyle Newman, Ben Barker, Joe Thompson, Jacob Hook.
WORKINGTON: Craig Cook, Tate Zischke, Antti Vuolas, Claus Vissing, Troy Batchelor, Celina Liebmann, Sam McGurk.
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Words by Holeshot Media.
Images by Taylor Lanning.