It’s a big week for the Lakeside Hammers Speedway team as they defend their Elite League Knockout Cup this Friday, at the Arena-Essex Raceway against arch rivals and 2008 Cup winners the Eastbourne Eagles.

It’s a big week for the Lakeside Hammers Speedway team as they defend their Elite League Knockout Cup this Friday, at the Arena-Essex Raceway against arch rivals and 2008 Cup winners the Eastbourne Eagles.

Friday’s fixture, which starts at 8pm, is the second leg of the tie with the first leg due to take place 24 hours earlier, on Thursday 23rd September, in Sussex.

The Hammers have made changes to their riding order in an effort to regain their form after they dipped out of the end of season League Play Offs a fortnight ago. They will move recent arrival Peter Ljung to the No.5 Heat Leader position for the both legs and Australian Adam Shields will move to No.4 partnering ‘Rider Replacement’ at Eastbourne and Kauko Nieminen at Lakeside with the Finn switching to No.2 for the away leg.

Hammers Team Manager Jon Cook commented on these changes stating: “This is our last throw of the dice for this season and we are hoping the changes will help us contain the Eagles at their place and the move to No.4 will hopefully give us an in form Adam (Shields) available in three of the last four heats there. We have had a two week break to get ourselves re-motivated and the boys are determined to give it their all in the defence of the title, in which four of them rode so well to win it 11 months ago”

The Lakeside Hammers management have also confirmed that there will be no replacement rider for the injured Jonas Davidsson after the delay caused by the initial refusal of the change by the Sport’s controlling body, the BSPA, saw a change of heart by the rider concerned in making a cameo appearance at this late stage in the UK.

The two teams for this important Cup encounter are (in alphabetical order):-

Lakeside Hammers: Peter Ljung (Sweden), Chris Neath (Great Britain), Kauko Nieminen (Finland), Lee Richardson, captain (Great Britain), Stuart Robson (Great Britain), Adam Shields (Australia). Rider Replacement will be used to cover for the injured Jonas Davidsson (Sweden).

Eastbourne Eagles: Lukas Dryml (Czech Republic), Simon Gustafsson (Sweden), Tomasz Jedrzejak (Poland), Ricky Kling (Sweden), Joonas Kylmakorpi (Finland), Cameron Woodward, captain (Australia), Matej Zagar (Slovenia).