KING’S Lynn host a massive night of racing at the Adrian Flux Arena on Monday as they take on Leicester in the first leg of the Premiership KO Cup Final (7.30pm).

The PSH Environmental Stars pulled off a memorable aggregate win over great rivals Ipswich to reach this stage, and now they want to take the decisive step and lift the silverware.

Stars are in a major Final for the first time since 2022 when they lost the equivalent League Cup decider to Sheffield, although on that occasion various delays meant it was staged at the very end of the season, with the second leg in November.

This time the event has a proper showpiece summer date, with King’s Lynn looking to lift the top-flight Cup for the first time since 2000.

The challenge is still a stern one, as Leicester are an in-form team led by Grand Prix star Max Fricke who is currently top of the Premiership averages, and the Lions underlined their current confidence by winning at Sheffield last Thursday.

Team news sees the Stars again bring in Lewis Kerr to guest for Ben Cook, whilst they hope the remainder of their top five will be at full strength with Niels-Kristian Iversen racing twice in three days in Poland this weekend after time out with rib damage.

Leicester have been without injured American racer Luke Becker for some time, and they have called up Tom Brennan – ironically of Ipswich, who the Stars defeated in the previous round – to guest.

Lynn manager Rob Lyon says it’s a great occasion for the club and one which his riders can thrive upon, but he doesn’t plan to set public targets of where they would like to see the tie ahead of Thursday’s second leg.

Lyon said: “We won’t be putting a number on what we want to do, as I don’t want to put pressure on everyone to achieve a certain figure.

“Ultimately we’ve got to score as well as we can in both matches, so we’ll see how we come out of things on Monday and then go to Leicester and do what we need to do.

“You can say 6, 10, 12, 14 points, but it will be what it will be. We had six points going to Ipswich and we managed to draw there, so I wouldn’t want to put any predictions on what we need ideally.

“This team is full of surprises and I do think we’ve shocked a few people in the past few weeks, so there’s no reason why we can’t do that again.

“It’s great for the fans and the club to be in this Final, it’s a bit of kudos to get there especially with the way we got there, and it gives us a really good week to look forward to.

“I just hope we can pull it off and bring the Cup home to celebrate with everyone, and it would give us something to build on for the future. But there’s a tough week of racing to come first.”

Supporters are reminded that normal admission prices apply, and season tickets are not valid for this meeting as the original package included just the first-round KO Cup fixture.

KING'S LYNN: Niels-Kristian Iversen, Richard Lawson, Chris Harris, Lewis Kerr, Jan Kvech, Nicolai Klindt, Luke Harrison.
LEICESTER: Max Fricke, Tom Brennan, Ryan Douglas, Kyle Howarth, Sam Masters, Drew Kemp, Joe Thompson.