 Well, it's almost that time. We are almost ready to race. If you're just joining us, you're joining us in Manchester at the Bellevue Stadium for the Monster Energy FIM Speedway of Nations Race Off 2. Great Britain play host to six other nations and they'll be battling it out to join Poland, Sweden, Germany and of course the host nation Russia on the 20th and 21st of July. Now, this is where all of the action happens. This is the pits base here and it's very, very busy at the moment. Team Australia, one of the favourites. Now Chris Holden in for Jason Doyle and I just wanted to interrupt as we always do. Hi Mark, how you doing? I'm doing great, I'm just having a good day. Good mouthful, just perfect timing indeed. Okay, well Mark, you've had a few changes, a few rider changes but quite a strong line-up all the same. Yeah, bringing Chris Holden in is no sort of hindrance to our team. Obviously losing Jason is a blow, especially the form he's been in and he's just so passionate to represent his country too. So not that the others aren't but you know, you're a former world champion and on fine forms it's going to be hard but the key thing is Jason's obviously taking an injury which we wanted to be fit and well for the next Grand Prix and we couldn't really risk him. You know, we potentially could do eight races here tonight so with a broken ribbon and sort of damaged lung it's probably not the place to be. Well coming in as one of the favourites, do you see Great Britain and Denmark as the contenders or are you just looking at the whole field as a strong competition field? Yeah, I think it's the usual suspects really when you look at the line-up so you can probably, those three nations are sort of up there and you expect to be sort of progressing through but you'll never underestimate the other countries, they've got some pretty talented riders and you know, Speedway's a funny hot game so it throws up a curve ball and you know, it's a bit like last year you know, we had the sort of tense moments there where those cut off race off races. Okay, well new rules under 21s come into play. Any ideas when you're going to put that in? Yeah, I've got a couple ideas but we'll see how that pans out to begin with but obviously you know, you're going to try and pick on the nations that probably aren't sort of the usual suspects. Okay, we'll let you get back to dinner, sorry to interrupt. Alright, well we'll just swing around this way because another usual face in the pits of Great Britain looking at to get their first gold medal since 1989, Nigel, is this the year? For Great Britain, they've got a chance, of course what they did last year in the final was fantastic and of course Ty won the final so if they can repeat that type of performance then they will be in the mix. They've got a chance, yes they can do it, not sure they will, I think it's going to be a great tournament in Russia and I think here in Bellevue, the national Speedway stadium which is my favourite track in the world, I think we're going to see a great night racing. Yeah for sure, okay well you are in the commentary booth with Calvin, what makes for the ultimate pairs heat? Well when there's a bit of team riding involved and if you've got a situation where you know you need a race advantage and the leader is looking over his shoulder and deliberately slowing down to try and get his partner through into second place for a maximum race, team riding, looking over your shoulder, slowing down, trying to slow your opponent down and that is great team riding. Calvin was useless at it as a rider, he was so selfish he'd just get and go. But great it is in the commentary booth we're sure, okay thank you so much Nigel Pearson, you'll be hearing more of him of course later on and that'll be from around about 7pm, remember that's local time, okay Mark's just trying to escape from us so he can eat his dinner. Let's head into the pits now, a bit further deep, oh what a nice surprise we see Natalie Quirk in the distance there as well, we won't interrupt her, right team GB here, well we have been speaking to Robert and Ty and Craig all very relaxed at the moment. I might just interrupt Craig and just see how he's feeling, he's wearing a bubble hat but the sun's out, unexpected sunshine Craig. Well we're up north now so you can't be too careful. How are you feeling ahead of tonight, the crowds are going to be big? Yeah I hope so, it's always a bonus to be in our home nation, resting in front of our home crowd so hope they all get behind us tonight and create some great atmosphere. What's it like riding pairs with the other two? Both phenomenally capable riders so yeah it's the great guys to ride with and if we need a bit of team riding then both of them are very capable to do so. Okay thanks Craig we'll leave you to it, they've got a signing in a bit as well so all the fans can get their autographs. Now this is what happens, the pits are opened up and all the fans, all the officials, all the people come into here so I'm going to walk you back out to the track so we get a bit of clear air. Now there's plenty of action as we said Poland, Germany and Sweden are already through joining host nation Russia so it is a question of can they do it, a very strong Denmark team as well. So the likely suspects are Great Britain, Australia and Denmark but make sure you keep across all of our social media to find out exactly what happens on the night.