Ipswich Witches v King’s Lynn Stars

IPSWICH continued their Foxhall domination this season over King’s Lynn with a 51-38 win in Thursday’s East Anglian derby.

All three clashes this season – two in the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership and one in the KO Cup – have followed a similar pattern with the Witches racing into an early lead and the Stars going into damage limitation mode.

The visitors had riders disqualified from each of the first three races for crashes and they found themselves 17 points down before recovering somewhat in the closing stages of the meeting.

Witches skipper Danny King was in the major points again with 12+1 with Richard Lawson adding 11 and Tobiasz Musielak 10, whilst Max Fricke dominated for the Stars with 14 from six rides, including four race wins.

Ipswich manager Paul Hurry said: “We haven’t really ridden together a lot. The boys have been riding for other clubs, and they are still finding their feet with each other.

“It’s just about taking the time to settle in. You can never take things for granted, and you always have to keep on pushing. But this was a good night, and it was great to go racing again.”

Stars boss Rob Lyon said: “Max pulled us through a few times and kept us in the match, but it was exactly the same type of situation that we had the first two times here when we were hanging on to their coat tails and looking to reduce that deficit for an aggregate point back at home.

“I had it my head that we could be in single digits coming away from here, so for it to be 13 points is a little disappointing, although I guess it’s not insurmountable.”

ROWE MOTOR OIL PREMIERSHIP R2
IPSWICH 51: Danny King 12+1, Richard Lawson 11, Tobiasz Musielak 10, Tom Brennan 6+2, Scott Nicholls 5+2, Jason Edwards 5, Philip Hellstrom-Bangs 2+1.
KING’S LYNN 38: Max Fricke 14, Jan Kvech 6, Chris Harris 6, Jordan Jenkins 4+1, Cooper Rushen 4, Ben Cook 3+1, Sam Hagon 1.

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Photo credit: JEFF HIGGOTT