Eastbourne will be gunning for revenge tomorrow night after losing a last-heat decider at Ipswich last night.
Eagles were beaten 47-43 but will now be favourites to turn the tables and pick up the Elite League bonus point when the teams meet in the return.
The Sussex squad actually led by six points after eight races, but in the end the combined power of the Ipswich big guns, Chris Louis and Tomasz Gollob, proved decisive. England international Louis was unbeaten, finishing with a 14-point paid maximum.
He and Gollob scored a 5-1 in the vital last race against Joe Screen, the race being rerun after Martin Dugard had crashed into the fence. Screen and Dugard, did, however, defeat Gollob in an incident-packed match.
It was a good all-round display by Eagles, and once again Petri Kokko was one of the stars. Kokko and David Norris put Eagles in with a chance of victory with a 5-1 in the next to last race. Scorers:
Ipswich: Chris Louis 14, Tomasz Gollob 12, Toni Svab 8, Matt Ferjan 6, Savalas Clouting 5, Lawrence Hare 2, Jason Bunyan 0.
Eastbourne: Petri Kokko 8, Joe Screen 8, Martin Dugard 8, David Norris 7, Paul Hurry 6, Dean Barker 5, Brent Collyer 1.
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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