CHRIS “Bomber”' Harris, the current darling of British Speedway rides at Foxhall tonight as the powerful Coventry Bees visit Ipswich Evening Star Witches in the Sky Sports Elite League, start 7.

By Mike Bacon

CHRIS “Bomber”' Harris, the current darling of British Speedway rides at Foxhall tonight as the powerful Coventry Bees visit Ipswich Evening Star Witches in the Sky Sports Elite League, start 7.30pm.

Harris was the sensational winner of the British Grand Prix at Cardiff 12 days ago and is also the current British Champion.

A real value-for-money racer, Harris and the Bees are set to be very tough opponents tonight for the home side.

With Witches former skipper Scott Nicholls also in the Bees line-up, and Australian Rory Schlein, it isn't hard to see why the midlanders are one of the favourites for the Elite League title this season.

For the Witches however tonight is a chance of a big scalp.

With seven straight home victories, the Witches don't lack confidence at home and their failings on their travels appear to be of little concern to a Foxhall crowd that continues to attend in numbers.

There have been some excellent meetings and races of late at Foxhall, with Zibi Suchecki's heat 14 clash with Charlie Gjedde against Swindon two weeks ago, one of the best races seen at the stadium for many years.

Away from home though the Suffolk side are a completely different kettle of fish and have become the whipping boys of the league on their travels.

But hapless results against Swindon and Peterborough on the road in the past seven days will be forgotten if the home side can come up trumps tonight.

Ipswich team manager, Mike Smillie knows how difficult tonight will be for the home side.

“I said that Swindon would be our toughest test at Ipswich a couple of weeks ago, and looking at the Coventry line up they will be very difficult to beat as well,” he said.

“We all know just how good Scott Nicholls is at Ipswich, and of course they also have Chris Harris who must be on cloud nine. He's riding with so much confidence at the moment that he will be a very hard man to beat.

“All the way down their line-up the Coventry team looks solid.

“But as I've said before we haven't lost at home since mid-April and all the guys are showing improvement especially at Ipswich. If we need any more incentive, other than to beat one of the league high fliers, it must be that a win would help us in our immediate target of overhauling both Reading and Eastbourne in the league standings.”

It is an important couple of days for the Witches season. A good result tonight will keep their current good Foxhall form going, while tomorrow night they are at Reading in the knock-out cup quarter-final first leg.

Without Jesper B Jensen, who is practising with the rest of the Danish team ahead of next week's World Cup, Ipswich will use a guest, expected to be Lakeside's Adam Shields.

Tonight's line-ups

Ipswich: 1 J Jensen, 2 K Jansson, 3 C Louis, 4 Z Suchecki, 5 R Miskowiak, 6 M Rempala, 7 T Kroner

Coventry: 1 S Nicholls, 2 O Allen, 3 R Schlein, 4 S Johnston, 5 C Harris, 6 B Janniro, 7 M Smolinski