LEICESTER bid to get back on the winning track in a big local derby at home to Wolverhampton on Thursday (7.30pm).
The sides meet at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena, Beaumont Park with the Lions looking to hit back from Monday’s defeat at Belle Vue – but this is likely to be another extremely tough test.
The West Midlands outfit have made a strong start to the season, particularly at home, and they have a side packed full of Leicester track specialists.
Those include skipper Sam Masters, who rode for the Lions much earlier in his career back in 2015, and fellow Australian Ryan Douglas, a title-winner for Leicester at Championship level four years ago.
The captain of that victorious Leicester team in the second tier was Scott Nicholls, who has made a succession of guest appearances for Wolves in the early stages of the season due to a broken leg suffered by Luke Becker, and Nicholls has been in vintage form so far this year.
So the Lions are primed for a difficult encounter in which they need to put things together as an all-round team, after a number of meetings with encouraging signs but a lack of all-round consistency.
Boss Stewart Dickson names an unchanged team and riding order for the encounter, which is the first of two successive home meetings with the re-arranged King’s Lynn match coming up next week (May 11).
Dickson said: “We need to respond from Monday’s meeting at Belle Vue, and we know we are going to get tested against Wolves.
“Nobody is going to present easy opposition in this league, but this is a particularly tough one when you look at the number of track specialists in the Wolves side.
“We need to be better collectively and cut out the mistakes and problems, and if we can do that then it’s a meeting we would expect to win.”
Gates open at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena, Beaumont Park at 6pm, with the meeting getting underway at 7.30pm.
The club will also be making a significant announcement before racing starts, and supporters in the stadium will get to hear the news first.
LEICESTER: Max Fricke, Justin Sedgmen, Richard Lawson, Chris Harris, Nick Morris, Jake Allen, Dan Thompson.
WOLVERHAMPTON: Sam Masters, Steve Worrall, Rory Schlein, Ryan Douglas, Scott Nicholls, Zach Cook, Leon Flint.
