LEICESTER look to keep up their push for the play-offs when they host Peterborough in the Sports Insure Premiership on Thursday (7.30pm).
The Watling JCB Lions are on a run of five straight wins in the league, and two more points at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena, Beaumont Park will consolidate their position in the top four.
Lions are currently third in the table, level on points with Wolverhampton who are on the road at Ipswich on Thursday, with Leicester having a seven-point gap on the Witches who are outside the play-off places.
The clash with the Panthers marks the halfway stage in the Lions’ regular league campaign, and it has proved highly successful so far with an impressive run of results both home and away.
On paper, the Lions will be strong favourites on Thursday with the Panthers bottom of the table having won just one of their opening 12 matches.
However, that doesn’t entirely tell the story of the season as Peterborough pushed the Lions all the way on their previous visit in April, when the Lions edged to a 47-42 win, and since then they have strengthened up with the signing of Vadim Tarasenko who has adapted well to British Speedway after joining the club last month.
The Panthers also include former Leicester star Richie Worrall, a track expert at Beaumont Park who was superb in last Thursday’s Premiership Pairs as he led his side to runners-up place.
Lions track an unchanged line-up and riding order after a brief scare last Friday when Rising Star Drew Kemp crashed out of his meeting at Scunthorpe last Friday – but he was back in action over the weekend.
Manager Stewart Dickson said: “I’m quite happy with how we’ve been riding at home, but there will be no complacency from us heading into this meeting.
“We only beat them by five points earlier in the season and we’re not good enough to turn up and think we can be at 60-70 per cent just because we’re facing a team at the bottom of the league.
“Tarasenko looks like a class rider and whilst everyone comes to see their own team, I’m sure there will be a lot of interest from our supporters in seeing how he takes to the Leicester track.
“We know all about Richie and it’s interesting to see that Rob Lyon has put him at No.2, which I think is testament to the way Justin Sedgmen has been going. They’re obviously looking to counter Sedgy with Richie, but we’ll see if they lose out elsewhere.”
Gates open at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena, Beaumont Park at 6pm with the meeting getting underway at 7.30pm.
LEICESTER: Max Fricke, Justin Sedgmen, Richard Lawson, Chris Harris, Nick Morris, Jake Allen, Drew Kemp.
PETERBOROUGH: Niels-Kristian Iversen, Richie Worrall, Benjamin Basso, Ben Cook, Vadim Tarasenko, Hans Andersen, Jordan Jenkins.
