Birmingham Brummies 47-43 Ipswich Witches: Speedway report

It was a depleted Witches side that went into the fixture with Richard Lawson, Sam Masters, Troy Batchelor and Cameron Heeps guesting for the injured quartet of Jason Doyle, Emil Sayfutdinov, Adam Ellis and Keynan Rew.

The hosts were without the duo of Piotr Pawlicki and Wiktor Lampart with rider replacement covering Pawlicki and Simon Lambert in for Lampart.

There was nothing to separate the two sides after eight heats before two maximums from the hosts put them in the box seat for victory. Ipswich pulled some points back but didn’t have enough on the night to get a positive result. Lawson top scored with 13+1.

Lawson won a shared heat one before the Brummies went ahead in heat two with a 5-1. The Witches struck back in heat three with a maximum of their own courtesy of Masters and Batchelor. Heat four was a 3-3 leaving it all square at 12-12.

Lawson won again in heat five as the away side went ahead with a 2-4. Heat six ended in a 3-3 as Fredrik Lindgren finished ahead of Danny King and Jordan Jenkins went past Michael Palm Toft for a point.

It was level again after heat seven as the home team recorded a 4-2 and it was a shared heat eight with Dan Thompson winning the battle at the back against Leon Flint, making it 24-24.

The hosts went in front in heat nine with a 5-1 and made it back-to-back maximums in heat 10 to extend their lead.

Skipper Danny King is one of the few Witches not out injured (Image: Steve Waller)
The visitors got two points back in heat 11 as Lawson was a winner again and Thompson finished third. Lawson was brought in as a tactical substitute in heat 12 and it worked out well as he followed Masters home for the maximum to leave the score finely poised at 37-35.

Birmingham put themselves on the brink of a rare victory with a 5-1 in heat 13. Heat 14 was stopped as Palm Toft crashed with the visitors on a 2-4 at the time of the stoppage.

Ipswich were on a heat advantage again in the re-run, but Zach Cook passed Batchelor to win the race, ensuring a 3-3 that won his side the meeting. Masters won heat 15 as the Witches recorded a 2-4 to make the final score 47-43.

Witches boss Ritchie Hawkins is facing an injury crisis (Image: Steve Waller)

Boss Ritchie Hawkins said: "We were beaten by the better side tonight. The guests came in and all contributed and gave us everything, but we weren’t good enough and I have no complaints.

"We started the meeting well and had the good gates, but we let it slip too much when they had the better of the gates mid-meeting and gave ourselves too big a task to pull back later on, we all had a good go at it."

BIRMINGHAM 47: Fredrik Lindgren (c) 9+2, Piotr Pawlicki R/R, Simon Lambert (G) 5, Zach Cook 9+1, Tom Brennan 15+1, Michael Palm Toft 6+1, Leon Flint (RS) 3. 

IPSWICH 43: Richard Lawson (G) 13+1, Dan Thompson (RS) 3+1, Sam Masters (G) 10, Troy Batchelor (G) 6+1, Danny King (c) 4+1, Cameron Heeps (G) 3, Jordan Jenkins 4+2.