South – East League Div 1 .
Ipswich 89
Josh Brooke 15, Ashley Hill 14, George Solomon 13, Leon Mower 13, Jamie Chittock 12, Richard Williamson 12, Dan Pike 8, Lewis Roberts 2.

Norwich 82 .
Ian Grange 19, Lee Grange 17, Dan Chambers 14, Josh Colby 10, Leigh Cossey 9, Jason Barker 6, Oliver Riley 4, Alan Parkins 3.

Referee .Richard Hunt (Norfolk ) .

Ipswich went into this league fixture knowing only a win would do to keep their’s hopes alive of a first league title challenge, and would be looking to eat into a thirteen point advantage their Norfolk neighbours have after the first two matches between these heavy weights.

All started well for the Suffolk side with Barker moving at the tapes in the first heat and though Ian Grange went on to win the heat the Suffolk outfit were content to take the 5-4 on offer. The following two heats were shared.

Heat four saw Ipswich score an unlikely 7-0 when first Barker took down his team mate Parkins, then the unthinkable happened when for some reason the Norwich pairing returned to the pits without crossing the finish line. Both riders were deemed not to have finish the race. Two more shared heats followed before heat seven saw Norwich claim a 6-4 to close the gap to six points, Ipswich responded with a 6-4 in the next and a shared heat just before the break saw the Suffolk club eight points to the good half time score 47 – 39 .

To Norwich’s credit they came out in the second period fired up and claimed heats ten & eleven with two 6-4’s to close to within four points. Heat twelve saw Cossey get his marching orders for moving under orders ,the Suffolk side took full advantage to record a 7-2 win and move nine points clear. The next two heats were once again shared before disaster in heat fifteen when going round the first turn the Norwich riders came together ,then Barker was lapped to conclude a nightmare afternoon’s racing with his third exclision of the afternoon.

The drama didn’t stop there with Ipswich going into the last heat fourteen points to the good and coming off the inside grids they were looking to pile more misery on their opponents only to suffer two tape exclusions.

This just took the shine off what was a surperb alround team performance and though they might have had the chance of wiping out that advantage it set’s it up nicely for a winner takes all at Eaton Park as long as both teams remain unbeaten till then .