LAKESIDE Hammers, in proud association with The Royal Navy, take on the Coventry Bees tonight in an important Sky Sports Elite League match at their Arena-Essex Raceway.

LAKESIDE Hammers, in proud association with The Royal Navy, take on the Coventry Bees tonight in an important Sky Sports Elite League match at their Arena-Essex Raceway.

The Essex based Club are in the middle of a busy week of track action having travelled to Manchester on Monday to face the Belle Vue Aces and then tomorrow, Thursday 22nd July, they move down to the South Coast where they meet the Eastbourne Eagles at the Arlington Stadium.

This evening’s match against the Bees is one that the Hammers riders are determined to win as they need to consolidate on their third place in the League table and despite their opponents currently being down in eighth place in table the Bees side does have riders who have performed well around the Arena-Essex Raceway in the past.

Top of the Coventry averages and, therefore, riding at No.1 is a rider who is well known to the Hammers supporters as Krzysztof Kasprzak started the season in the Hammers colours. He subsequently moved on to Coventry when he was replaced in the Hammers line-up by Lee Richardson. In a powerful top two Kasprzak is joined by British Grand Prix rider Chris Harris who recently guested for the Hammers at Poole and scored a 15 point maximum. Completing the Bees top five are three young British riders, Ben Barker, Lewis Bridger and Edward Kennett. All three have scored well around at the Essex track in the past. At reserve Coventry will be using another young British rider, Josh Auty, who has ridden the Raceway well when competing in past British U-21 Finals. Joining Auty at reserve will be a young Polish rider, Przemyslaw Pawlicki, who will be visiting the track for the first time.

The Lakeside Hammers riders will all need to perform to the best of their abilities if they are to see off the challenge of Coventry and take all three of the important League points available from tonight’s match. The Hammers go into the meeting at full strength and the fans are likely to witness an extremely competitive encounter.

The action gets underway at the usual start time of 8pm and the weather forecast this evening is for it to remain hot. A large crowd is expected to attend this meeting if past encounters between these two sides is anything to go by.