DANNY King is hoping to be back on a bike next week, as Ipswich Witches search for another impressive home performance at Foxhall Stadium tonight.
Mike Bacon
SPEEDWAY
Ipswich Witches v Peterborough Panthers
Sky Sports Elite League
Foxhall Stadium, 7.30pm
By Mike Bacon
DANNY King is hoping to be back on a bike next week, as Ipswich Witches search for another impressive home performance at Foxhall Stadium tonight.
Witches captain King broke his sternum in a track crash in Sweden last Tuesday, and two nights later the Witches thrashed Poole to continue their climb towards the middle of the Elite League.
The new-look Witches have impressed, and King couldn't be more delighted.
“I think the new team is impressive, really good. The atmosphere is excellent and it just makes my job as captain really easy.
“I'm hoping to be back next week, I did think about riding on Thursday, but I don't think I could do it.”
King has returned to Foxhall and has not only taken over the captaincy from Leigh Lanham, who has moved to Newport, but also upped his average.
“I haven't progressed as much as I would have liked, although I know I've done OK, getting into Team GB and upping my average.
“But I want a strong finish.”
The Witches entertain Peterborough tonight and will hope to continue their fine form of late, using rider replacement for the injured King.
Panther's team manager Trevor Swales has shuffled his pack after the release of the new averages.
Claus Vissing moves up into the team to partner captain Niels Kristian Iversen at No.2, Kenneth Hansen at three will now be partnered with Kenneth Bjerre and Mads Korneliussen takes over the No.5 race jacket.
Swales said: “I felt we needed to change something because we are not getting the results in the right places and we are certainly lacking race wins, this should make us stronger in heat 14 and provides us with other options.”
Promoter Mick Bratley said: “Every time we face Ipswich, there seems to be some sort of controversy. At home we had the 'white line' incident, and I witnessed John Louis almost self combust.
“Then in our last visit to Foxhall, Bob the track man used almost his whole year's budget for diesel on re-laying the track during the heat eight interval, also causing John to nearly self combust!
“Seriously though, I always enjoy our visits to Foxhall, though I don't always enjoy the results.”
Teams
Ipswich: 1 Scott Nicholls, 2 Tobias Kroner, 3 Robert Miskowiak, 4 R/R, 5 Troy Batchelor, 6 Dawid Stachyra, 7 Carl Wilkinson.
Peterborough: 1 Niels K Iversen, 2 Claus Vissing, 3 Mads Korneliussen, 4 Kenneth Hansen, 5 Kenneth Bjerre, 6 Ales Dryml, 7 Henning Bager.
mike.bacon@archant.co.u
www.lovespeedway24.co.uk
Sky Sports Elite League
TABLE up to and including August 3:
M W D L F A Pts
Swindon 24 18 0 6 1219 984 61
Wolves 24 17 0 7 1184 1026 56
Coventry 26 15 0 11 1182 1177 45
Lakeside 27 12 2 13 1252 1235 42
P'borough 25 14 0 11 1165 1135 41
Eastbourne 25 9 1 15 1093 1188 30
Ipswich 23 9 0 14 1001 1099 25
Poole 25 6 3 16 1072 1203 22
Belle Vue 21 7 0 14 906 1027 20
IN FACTFILE
JAREK Hampel, who rode for Ipswich Witches in the first half of the season, will be riding at Coventry next month to try and win a place back in the Grand Prix speedway series.
The Pole will be seeking a top three finish and he is joined in the field by his fellow countryman and former Witch Piotr Protasiewicz.
Current Ipswich star Tobi Kroner is one of the two reserves for the meeting on Friday September 18 with the complete field as follows: Kenneth Bjerre, Grzegorz Walasek, Chris Harris, Chris Holder, Lukas Dryml, Magnus Zetterstrom, Davey Watt, Jurica Pavlic, Jarek Hampel, Fredrik Lindgren, Maksims Bogdanovs, Adrian Miedzinski, Piotr Protasiewicz, Martin Smolinski, Jonas Davidsson and Kauko Nieminen. Reserves: Antonio Lindback and Tobias Kroner.
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