King's Lynn look for upturn in fortunes for Peterborough derby clash
The King’s Lynn Stars on Monday travel to Peterborough Panthers in a battle of the bottom two speedway A47 derby.
Reigning champions Peterborough have struggled and their defeat of Sheffield in the Premiership’s first-ever Super Heat following a 45-45 draw a fortnight ago meant they finally got off the mark for 2022.
The Stars have so far in 2022 beaten Peterborough home and away in the league cup and in the Premiership at home, but have suffered back-to-back defeats in their last two outings at the Adrian Flux Arena.
Lynn, who have two meetings in hand, are nine points behind Belle Vue Aces, the team in fourth place who they must overtake if they want to reach the end of season play-offs.
The Minors & Brady Stars will be desperate to replace veteran heat leader Niels-Kristian Iversen, who has been recalled to Poland, before going up the A47.
Iversen’s last appearance was at Ipswich on June 2 when he scored 9+1 points.
King’s Lynn Stars team boss Alex Brady said: “Niels would love to be here.
“He is practising out in Poland but would much rather be racing with us.
“He feels he is a better rider when he races more meetings. Unfortunately the Polish Federation say no.
“His contract runs until October but his meetings run until the end of July as long as they don’t make the play-offs. He possibly could be back by the first week of August but I personally feel we need to do something sooner because we are in a little bit of danger of things slipping away.
“There’s possibly some options out there, hopefully sooner rather than later. Other riders would love to come here and would do a fantastic job but they’re bound by their contracts to other countries.
“We will come back stronger and hopefully we can do that at Peterborough. We’ve won there once this season.”
Brady confirmed to the Lynn News that Iversen also races in Sweden and in his native Denmark and in a situation where a rider races in the Polish league and two other European leagues it is a minor miracle Lynn secured the services of the Dane – who turned 40 years-old last week – in the first place.
“Pretty much. We got approval as it was injury replacement (for Iversen’s compatriot Peter Kildemand) and because it was an ongoing thing he can continue as injury replacement, but unfortunately they decided that wasn’t applicable any longer which was really disappointing," replied Brady.
“It’s tough to swallow as it’s through no fault of our own and through no fault of Niels, which I really wanted to stress, but it’s severely hampered us and it’s something I want to get sorted out ASAP.”
