KING’S LYNN enter a critical week for their ROWE Motor Oil Premiership play-off hopes when they make the trip to bottom club Birmingham on Monday (7.30pm).
Victory is essential for the PSH Environmental Stars, who will collect three league points if they are successful at Perry Barr, having defeated the Brummies 49-40 in the reverse fixture at the Adrian Flux Arena earlier this month.
That would cut the gap on fourth placed Leicester to just two points ahead of a big showdown at the Hydroscand Arena, Beaumont Park on Thursday.
But the first job to be done is in the West Midlands against a Brummies side who enjoyed something of a renaissance a month ago but who have now suffered two heavy defeats.
They were hammered 57-33 at home by Sheffield earlier this month and then crashed to a 62-28 loss at second-bottom Oxford on Thursday.
Since the previous meeting between the sides, Birmingham have lost their facility for Michael Jepsen Jensen, who left the club in May, and the Danish star has now been replaced by one-time Stars rider Ben Barker.
Lynn will be unchanged in terms of riding order from last week’s narrow defeat at Belle Vue, although new averages will come into play later this week which will see Niels-Kristian Iversen take over at No.1 with captain Nicolai Klindt going to reserve.
On Monday Jan Kvech, who has been undergoing treatment on his shoulder injury this week, returns at No.6 having successfully come through his meeting for Torun on Sunday where he scored 11+3.
Luke Harrison continues in the Rising Star berth for a meeting where, given the expected heat, handling track conditions at Perry Barr could well be key to the Stars’ chances.
Manager Rob Lyon said: “With four and six points to make up at home to Sheffield and Belle Vue, we’re confident that we can get three points out of the return legs against both of those teams.
“I do feel that with Jan in the side we would have been coming away from Belle Vue with a win, but we can’t control that, that’s speedway.
“So we look forward to Birmingham away which is a meeting that we do need to win, and that would give us three points.
“Then we can look ahead to Leicester, but it’s one meeting at a time and we have a job to do first on Monday.
“Jan has always been hopeful of coming back for Birmingham, and he confirmed to me on Saturday he'd be with us, as long as he came through Sunday okay."
Supporters not making the trip to Perry Barr should note the meeting will be live streamed at: https://www.brummies.tv
BIRMINGHAM: Tobiasz Musielak, Paco Castagna, Jonas Jeppesen, Keynan Rew, Matej Zagar, Ben Barker, Sam Hagon. KING’S LYNN: Richard Lawson, Niels-Kristian Iversen, Chris Harris, Ben Cook, Nicolai Klindt, Jan Kvech, Luke Harrison.
