KING’S Lynn once again paid the price for a slow start as they were beaten 50-40 at Ipswich in the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership on Monday.
It was an identical scoreline to the PSH Environmental Stars’ KO Cup defeat at the same venue last month, and in many ways the meeting followed a similar pattern with the home side doing the bulk of their work in the early stages before the visitors fought back.
Race wins proved an issue throughout the afternoon as Stars riders took the flag on just three occasions, two of them from No.1 Max Fricke and the other from Ben Cook.
Former Lynn racer Richard Lawson raced to 14 points from five rides for the Witches, missing out on a maximum to Fricke in Heat 15, and No.1 Tom Brennan was also unbeaten prior to that final race.
For the Stars, there was plenty of hard work in the middle order and they outscored their opponents at reserve with Cooper Rushen collecting paid-nine and taking the scalp of Polish star Tobiasz Musielak in Heat 11.
But Lynn were chasing the meeting from early stage with Brennan and Danny King gating to an opening 5-1 for the Witches, who added a 4-2 in the next with Jason Edwards taking the win.
Stars could feel very hard done by in Heat 3 as Chris Harris and Ben Cook held a 5-1 position only for the red lights to come on, and then after a further stoppage when Scott Nicholls touched the tapes, Lawson won the re-run.
Jody Scott did well to pass Edwards in Heat 4 to share the race behind Musielak and Jan Kvech, but Ipswich continued to extend their lead with a 4-2 in Heat 5, Fricke splitting Lawson and Nicholls, and then maximum points again from the powerful Brennan/King combination in Heat 6.
Harris and Cook packed in behind Musielak to share Heat 7 but the home side’s advantage was up to 16 points when King and Edwards raced to a 5-1 in the next.
Lawson maintained his winning ways in a shared Heat 9, and Stars finally managed to relegate King to the back of Heat 10 with Cook holding firm in third place for another 3-3 outcome.
The first real sign of a comeback came in Heat 11 with Rushen superbly holding Musielak behind him for a paid win behind Fricke as the Stars celebrated their first 5-1 of the meeting.
Two more shared races followed with Harris and Rushen splitting Heat 12 ahead of Edwards with Lawson out front, and Brennan remained unbeaten when he took Heat 13 as Musielak came to grief when chasing Fricke.
Stars used their tactical substitute in Heat 14 as Fricke came into the race, but to the frustration of the visitors he was penalised for movement at the start and had to fight back from the 15-metre handicap.
Cook won the race and Fricke made his way past Nicholls into third place but couldn’t quite get on terms with Jenkins for a maximum advantage, before Fricke spoiled the unbeaten runs of Lawson and Brennan in a shared finale.
Stars manager Rob Lyon said: “It felt a bit like a battle today if I’m honest, and again we started so slowly.
“We’d talked at length about how we needed to make sure we stayed with them in the first four or five heats, but it nearly mirrored what was going on in the first meeting.
“We had a situation in Heat 3 where we were on a 5-1 and the red lights came on inexplicably, the referee didn’t know why, and then of course in the re-run Richard Lawson won the race, which is always the case.
“We were really struggling at the midpoint of the meeting, but we did get it together towards the end, and it was a case of damage limitation really to make it as respectable as possible to give us a chance for the aggregate point – and ironically we ended up ten down again, which was exactly the same scoreline as the first one!”
IPSWICH 50: Rickard Lawson 14, Tom Brennan 12+2, Danny King 8+1, Tobiasz Musielak 7, Jason Edwards 5+1, Jordan Jenkins 3, Scott Nicholls 1. KING’S LYNN 40: Max Fricke 12, Ben Cook 7+2, Chris Harris 7+1, Cooper Rushen 6+3, Jan Kvech 6+1, Jody Scott 2+1, Paco Castagna 0.
