The Lions Team Manager Jim Lynch believes that a win against Swindon in their opening SGB Premiership fixture at Beaumont Park will be a great confidence booster to his riders.
“The Swindon riders have a good record at Leicester and for us there is no home track advantage at the moment following the alterations to bends one and two so to start with a win will be just the tonic we need” said Lynch.
Leicester’s circuit has been re-mastered around the pits turns to provide the riders with more choices of racing lines into and out of the bends. “There has been a tremendous amount of work that has gone on in such a short space of time and everyone is looking forward to seeing competitive racing for the first time on the re-shaped circuit. We face being without two key riders which is not ideal to begin the season but it is partly due to the late start in the process of team building that has positioned us in this situation. However, we are working on easing clashes by negotiating change of dates with clubs whenever an opportunity presents itself to do so.”
Danny King the newly appointed captain of the Watling JCB Lions is one of the absentees as the British Champion is required by Ipswich and his place has been taken by last season’s skipper Nicolai Klindt. “Of all the riders available to accept a booking on Saturday Nicolai was one of our first choices as he rides the Leicester track so well and scored an average of over eight points a meeting. From the moment we re-signed Josh Auty we knew that he would miss this fixture and we have engaged another Leicester track specialist Lasse Bjerre as his replacement. Lasse lost his team place in the Premiership when Coventry withdrew from the league and this meeting is an ideal shop window to remind promoters of his worth.”
Swindon meanwhile are unchanged and are led by Jason Doyle and they have five new faces in the side from the team that finished fifth in the league last season.
Teams
LEICESTER: 1. Kim Nilsson, 2. Erik Riss, 3. Kacper Gomolski, 4. Lasse Bjerre, 5. Nicolai Klindt, 6. Josh Bates and 7. Danny Ayres.
SWINDON: 1. Jason Doyle, 2. Bradley Wilson-Dean, 3. Adam Ellis, 4. David Bellago, 5. Nick Morris, 6. Emil Grondal and 7. Zach Wajtknecht.
