Eastbourne Eagles face a massive test of their Elite League title credentials at Ipswich tonight.

That's the view of Sussex speedway boss Jon Cook, whose new-look team lost narrowly at Kings Lynn last week and were then denied a home league debut by the rain.

Ipswich are not the force they were two seasons ago when they blew everyone else away, but Cook still sees them as a yardstick for the rest of the league.

"They beat us by 26 points the last time we went there, and we lost to them at Arlington, so this week will tell us a lot about ourselves," said Cook.

The teams are due to meet in the return at Eastbourne on Saturday, so Eagles will have one eye on the bonus point. Ipswich, who have signed Matt Ferjan from Poole and Lawrence Hare from Oxford to replace Tomas Topinka and Brett Woodifield, have already won twice at home against Coventry and Oxford.

Eastbourne, who name an unchanged team, will be hoping for an improved display from new No. 1 Joe Screen.

Ipswich: Chris Louis, Lawrence Hare, Toni Svab, Matt Ferjan, Tomasz Gollob, Savalas Clouting, Jason Bunyan.

Eastbourne: Joe Screen, Dean Barker, Martin Dugard, David Norris, Paul Hurry, Brent Collyer, Petri Kokko.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.