OXFORD Spires have 16 points to recover at Sandy Lane on Thursday after King’s Lynn Stars won 53-37 in the first leg of the Premiership Knockout Cup quarter-final.
After eight races, the Stars had raced into a 33-15 lead, but new Spires signing Francis Gusts burst past Niels Kristian Iversen and Nicolai Klindt on the opening lap of Heat 9 to join skipper Maciej Janowski for a 5-1.
Janowski passed Ben Cook for third place on the final bend of Heat 13 to join race winner Rohan Tungate for a 4-2.
Former Spires skipper Chris Harris posted a six-ride paid maximum, and the nearest any Spires rider came to defeating ‘Bomber’ was in Heats 12 and 14, when Gusts held him back for the majority of both races.
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Spires team manager Peter Schroeck said: “It didn’t look so good early on, but we had a talk together and we then did much better for the rest of the meeting.
“The boys thought the King’s Lynn track was much grippier than it actually was, and it took us a while to get the set-ups right.
“We had some good races, while the performance of Francis was the highlight. He took a 5-1 with Maciej and then gave Chris Harris a real race a couple of times.
“It was the Bomber show. He wanted to make a statement which is what we expected. When you take him away, it was pretty level between the two teams.”
