Lions hope to clinch the double over Stars

LEICESTER Lions travel to Norfolk tonight to race the King’s Lynn Stars in the return Premiership fixture, writes Alan Jones.

The two teams met seven days ago at the Pidcock Motorcycles Arena, Beaumont Park, and Leicester edged to a 47-42 points victory on the opening night of the season.

American Luke Becker top scored for the Lions with 11 points on his debut, which included two race wins.

King’s Lynn’s new signing Vadim Tarasenko was the stand-out performer for the visitors with 10 points.

The Russian international was at his best in heat 13, when he came from third to first after passing Lions captain Max Fricke and then caught up with Ryan Douglas to pass the Australian along the back straight.

Overall it was a solid performance by King’s Lynn, with six of their seven riders winning at least one race, which kept the scoring close.

The Lions won both Premiership fixtures at the Adrian Flux Arena last season.

With aggregate points likely to be vital in the race for the play-offs this year, it promises to be an interesting 15 heats.

Leicester will be hoping to reproduce the form that carried them to two victories last season while the Stars will be looking to overturn the five-point margin on their own track tonight.

Teams

King’s Lynn Stars: Tobiasz Musielak, Niels Kristian-Iversen, Michael Palm Toft, Benjamin Basso, Vadim Tarasenko, Patryk Wojdylo and Anders Rowe.

Leicester Lions: Max Fricke, Richard Lawson, Sam Masters, Luke Becker, Ryan Douglas, Drew Kemp and Joe Thompson.

Meanwhile, Leicester’s second team, the Lion Cubs, are in action tomorrow in Manchester.

They face the Belle Vue Colts in a National Development League fixture.

Arran Butcher, Luke Crang and Sonny Springer all make their debuts for Leicester.

Team manager David Howard has named Oxford’s Jody Scott as a guest replacement for Max James, who is required by his Championship club, the Edinburgh Monarchs.