KING'S Lynn face a crucial Bank Holiday Monday (7.30pm) trip to bottom of the table Birmingham as they look to keep in the hunt for the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership play-offs.
The PSH Environmental Stars' home defeat to Sheffield last Monday proved to be a damaging result, especially as Leicester then took advantage of Ipswich's injury woes to record a shock away win at Foxhall on Thursday.
That means the Stars go into Monday's schedule seven points adrift of the top four "" and it could be more than that if Leicester beat Birmingham in a midday fixture at Beaumont Park.
The visit to Perry Bar at least takes Lynn back to a venue where they enjoyed success last season, winning both of their away matches in the Second City.
So far this time around the Brummies have lost all nine matches, seven of them in the league, and their problems have been compounded by the departure of star man Michael Jepsen Jensen.
They do have a short-term facility to replace him, entitling them to either a guest or rider replacement, and they have elected to go down the r/r route once again on Monday "" something the Stars will not be doing as they continue to cover for the injury absence of Ben Cook.
Frustrated by the lack of in-meeting options that r/r can provide, Lynn have instead booked Ipswich's Jordan Jenkins to guest in the top five, following impressive results for him at Birmingham this season.
Jenkins scored eight points, including two wins over Matej Zagar, when the Witches visited in April, and last Monday he topped that with 11+1 from five rides.
There are two former Lynn riders in the Birmingham team as they include brief Stars man from 2024 Tobiasz Musielak as skipper at No.1, whilst Rising Star Jason Edwards also spent time at the Adrian Flux Arena.
Meanwhile for the Stars, Chris Harris has had two previous spells in Birmingham colours, racing for them in the top-flight in 2013 and at Championship level in 2021.
Lynn boss Rob Lyon said: "All six of our riders who are currently racing are in and out of consistency, they're taking a lot of rides, and it highlights it even more when you're struggling.
"That's the thing we've had to consider especially in the case of Nicolai (Klindt) and Jan (Kvech) because of the rider replacement situation.
"It's just niggly things but there's nowhere to hide in this league, and obviously it's all the more important to pull off a result at Birmingham.
"We need to get the points there, but we said that last week against Sheffield and look what happened! We have to move on to Monday, get the points and see where it takes us into June, and see what we can do."
BIRMINGHAM: Tobiasz Musielak, Paco Castagna, Michael Jepsen Jensen r/r, Keynan Rew, Matej Zagar, Jonas Jeppesen, Jason Edwards. KING'S LYNN: Chris Harris, Richard Lawson, Jan Kvech, Jordan Jenkins, Niels-Kristian Iversen, Nicolai Klindt, Ashton Boughen.
*KING'S Lynn Young Stars racer Cooper Rushen has qualified for the SGP3 Final which will take place in Prague on Friday. Rushen won his semi-final at Slovenian venue Krsko on Saturday and will be one of the favourites for what is effectively the World Youth Championship, raced by youngsters under the age of 16 and on 250cc machinery. All at King's Lynn wish Cooper all the very best for the Final!
