Speedway: Ipswich face Leicester determined to make the play-offs
Witches currently sit five points adrift of fourth
The Ipswich Witches return to Premiership action tonight at Leicester.
Witches had a week off last week with the Speedway World Cup taking in place in Poland, but the focus is now back on the domestic campaign.
Ipswich have a challenge on their hands if they are to make the play-offs, currently sitting five points adrift of fourth having raced three more meetings.
Monday’s fixture is the start of three on the road for the Suffolk side with manager Ritchie Hawkins saying that perfection is needed from those three fixtures to put pressure on the top four.
The Witches have had mixed fortunes at Leicester this season, winning in the Knockout Cup but suffering a 14-point defeat in the league in the R1 fixture.
The visitors are at full strength and it is one of the many tracks Emil Sayfutdinov has taken a liking to, having scored a 12-point maximum and 17 on his two visits there this season.
Team manager Ritchie Hawkins had these pre-match thoughts:
“We are looking forward to getting back into action after a week off and a little break. We have got a run of three away meetings coming up and we need to start that run off with a win at Leicester.
"We need three wins from the three away meetings to put pressure on the teams in the play-off race. Hopefully that would put pressure on them to slip up and make a mistake. If we don’t win the away meetings, we will still be miles behind and it will be easy for them, so we need to make sure we perform well away from home and put the pressure on.
“It’s our third visit to Leicester this season, we started the season there brilliantly with a win early on and we will look to repeat that.
"When I look at our line-up, we have got seven riders capable of doing very well at Leicester. We have three heat leaders who can win races and score a lot of points and the four riders backing them up have also had good moments at Leicester and a lot of experience riding there between them.
"We look forward to it and certainly as individuals we should go there knowing we have got seven riders capable of winning races.
“Leicester are on a great run, they have won eight in a row but that has to come to an end at some point. We are concentrating on ourselves and what we are doing and if we can end that streak on Monday, it will give us a great boost going into the remainder of the season.”