British Mini Bike bosses have scheduled a mid-July season opening race but will put in place many new systems to comply with coronavirus restrictions and no spectators will be allowed.

The first round is slated for Ellough Park Circuit on the weekend of the 17th, 18th and 19th July where the series will occupy much more of the runway in order to comply with social distancing regulations.

"I am pleased to say that our permit issuers and insurers have now approved our planned health and safety procedures, which adhere to the necessary government guidelines on social distancing and infection control that will enable us to recommence racing," said BMB chief Alan Lord.

"We now plan to start in mid-July to give us every possible chance of proceeding. However, this as always is very much subject to the Government keeping to their current policy towards a phased withdrawal from lockdown. Which in itself is dependant on people abiding by the rules and Infection rates not rising above the R1 level.

"Also, besides this, we won’t proceed until Mike and myself feel that we have all the correct procedures, systems and equipment in place to allow us to safely do so.

"These are restrictions we will all have to abide by to enable us to restart racing, mean that we will struggle to hold an event at some of the circuits with smaller paddocks but we are looking at either rescheduling these for later in the year or changing the format for the weekend to enable us to proceed with them."

Among the new systems in place will be online rider briefings, digital sign-on, digital scrutineering and wi-fi available at events when signal is poor.

Spectators will be banned from events until advised otherwise and riders will be allowed only one family member to help  (two for juniors if from the same household with a maximum of three persons).