BRITISH SPEEDWAY SEPTEMBER 21
Date: Tuesday September 21, 2021
(SPEEDWAY 1)
SHEFFIELD stunned Peterborough with a 51-39 win at the East of England Arena to leave the Premiership play-off picture still unconfirmed.
Victory for the Panthers would have taken them top and given them pick of semi-final opponents, but that issue will now not be resolved until their home match with King’s Lynn on Thursday.
And the result gives the Tigers plenty of optimism for their own campaign, as they dominated proceedings with British Champion Adam Ellis leading the way with 13 points, and his 5-1 with Jack Holder (9+2) in Heat 13 effectively confirmed victory.
Michael Palm Toft scored 13 from six rides for the Panthers, who suffered their third home defeat of the season and remain two points behind Wolverhampton.
Sheffield boss Simon Stead said: “I just feel like we’ve not quite had the rub of the green for the last few meetings, injuries upset our balance, but we’ve come back fighting and really our season starts now.
“It’s been so frustrating because I’ve felt like we’ve had the right people in, but we’ve just not all fired at the same time, and tonight has just proved what a force we can be when everything goes right.
“We’ve ridden well, there’s talk that maybe we caught Peterborough on an off-night, but we’ve ridden well and the atmosphere in the team is really good. It’s set us up really well for Sunday and the important fixtures that are coming up.”
Peterborough manager Rob Lyon said: “Sheffield came here tonight and did a job on us, there’s no doubt about that, and they deserved it. They were pretty solid all the way through, they were consistently out-trapping us, and we made it hard work for ourselves.
“But the boys are aware of it, we know where we went wrong, so we’ll get it out of the way now and re-focus for Thursday.”
(SPEEDWAY 2)
LEICESTER face two away meeting in as many days – starting at Kent tonight (Tuesday).
Stewart Dickson’s side make the long trip for a rearranged fixture before hitting the road again up to Glasgow 24-hours later, and two wins could still see them have a say in the battle for a top two finish and automatic qualification for the Championship play-off semi-finals.
Lions skipper Kyle Howarth said: “It’s a lot of travelling but it’s time on the bike and we’ve got a lot of meetings in a short space of time.
“We’re playing catch-up with the Leicester away fixtures after recent rain-offs and the travelling aspect of quick turnaround of meetings is very demanding, but after missing an entire season last year I’m not complaining!
“This is the business end of the season and we know Kent will be tough with riders like Scott Nicholls and Troy Batchelor in their team.”
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 22:
CHAMPIONSHIP: Birmingham v Newcastle 7.30, Glasgow v Leicester 7.30, Poole v Redcar 7.30
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 23:
PREMIERSHIP: Peterborough v King’s Lynn 7.30
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 24:
CHAMPIONSHIP: Glasgow v Birmingham 7.30
NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT LEAGUE: Armadale v Leicester 7.30
JULIE LEWIS MEMORIAL: Redcar 7.30
NO PRESSURE ON ZMARZLIK AFTER LATVIAN GP WIN