Leicester travel to Swindon on Thursday looking for a repeat of their last visit in June when they upset the formbook with a surprise win in Wiltshire against the Robins who were third in the Elite League table at the time.
It is the Lions only success away from home this season and they had guest rider Brady Kurtz to thank as the teenage Australian Champion scored seventeen points out of a possible twenty-one. That night Swindon forged into an early lead but gradually their eight points advantage was whittled away and by the ninth heat Leicester were ahead. Entering the final race Swindon were still in with a chance of winning the match but Nicolai Klindt was first across the finishing line and with Kurtz picking up a third place the Lions secured the league points.
“Everything just fell into place for once that night. We did have a little piece of luck in the final heat when Jason Doyle was trying his hardest to pass Nicolai and Brady but fell off in his attempt and was excluded from the re-run. Who knows whether Doyle would have succeeded had he not crashed but we deserved the points as we worked hard to recover from a bad start at the beginning” said the Lions Team Manager, Norrie Allan.
The Robins have named the same seven that lost at home to Leicester which includes their former captain Jason Doyle who is in contention for a top three place in this season’s Speedway Grand Prix competition. Doyle has won two of the seven rounds so far and is second on the leader-board and just seven points behind Greg Hancock.
“Swindon will be going all-out for a win which they need to remain in the play-offs zone whereas unfortunately we don’t have that pressure to contend with. We have nothing to lose and if each of my riders does their job like they did against Poole on Monday then there is every possibility of another close match” added Allan.
Patrick Hougaard returns to the side having missed the two previous fixtures against Poole due to clashes of dates with his Danish League club but the Paul Chapman and Sons Lions are missing Ludvig Lindgren who is involved in the Swedish Play-offs and Leicester bring in Michael Palm Toft as a guest replacement.
Teams
Swindon: 1. Jason Doyle, 2.Justin Sedgmen, 3. Nick Morris, 4. Rohan Tungate, 5. Josh Grajczonek, 6. Charles wright and 7. Stefan Nielsen.
Leicester: 1. Patrick Hougaard, 2. Aaron Summers, 3. Nicolai Klindt, 4. Paul Starke, 5. Szymon Wozniak, 6. Michael Palm Toft and 7. Josh Auty.
