Leeds’ hopes of becoming the first club to win all six major trophies in a single season are over for another year after they lost out to Stowmarket in the final of the 4TT. A fourth straight victory in the competition and a sixth in total for Bill Jones’s Witches, who move just one success away from matching Eastbourne in the all-time winners list, SL27 winners Leeds had to settle for the runners-up spot for the second successive season. Lasse Classen has been an ever-present in Stowmarket’s remarkable four season winning run, but the Dane didn’t get off to the best of starts in leg one of the final this week, he failing to finish in two of his four races in the Witches home opener. Still he picked up wins in the other two, and his below par score was more than made up by excellent work from his three team matches, the unbeaten Oliver Schmidt (12), Martin Huffman (10) and Christopher Hall (9) racing to eight race wins between them. The aggregate lead was passed to Leeds in the second leg however, with the Jaguars making full use of home advantage to finish ten points clear of Coalville on the night, Stowmarket scored just 19 and would head to Mid Cams trailing by seven. It was Leeds’s turn to disappointment at the injury hit Harriers, the home side impressing with 33 points, Leeds less so with 16 on a night in which Stowmarket managed 26. On to Coalville where all but Mid Cams began leg four with hopes of picking up the silverware, with Stowmarket holding a slight advantage. It’s an advantage they managed to hold for the whole meeting despite picking up just three of the 16 race wins, the third of which in heat 15 ending the hopes of both Leeds and the hosts. Daniel Lake won the last for the Jaguars to seal the runners-up spot, but by now the Witches celebrations were already in full swing.

Their 4TT hopes are over for another year but it’s full throttle towards the league title now for the Jaguars. Home and away victories saw them claim the maximum six points as their rivals Stowmarket picked up just two from their latest fixtures, a single point gap between the top two has become five as a result, meaning a home win for Leeds against Eastbourne—they’ve won their 21 top flight fixtures at the Hawthorne—in the penultimate round will see them claim the division one crown for a third year in a row. It was a 42-47 victory at Coalville which dealt the biggest blow to their challengers this week, Daniel Lake’s (10) victory over tactical substitute Daniel Waller (11) securing them their fifth away win of the campaign and their third in their last four visits to Kings Meadow. Coalville bounced back from the loss to win at bottom side Coventry, 44-46, securing their own safety in the process.

A record crowd of 31,576 was at Leeds to see Plock’s Piotr Slusarski (12) extend his lead at the top of the World Championship standings to six points. The SL29 World Champion winning the British GP for the first time in his career after defeating England and Derby veteran Nathan Kay in a race-off, his closest title rival Belal Fabian (11) had already guaranteed himself a fifth podium finish after beating another home nation star Aaron Macaulay in the extra race for third. 35 year old Slusarski talked up the prospect of joining the British League in SL32 following the victory: “It’s another goal of mine, lets just wait and see but I’m hoping a move could happen.”

Germany (26)—managed by Glenn Ford of Brickhill—held on to win the SL31 International 4TT Final despite their top rider Dirk Miller (8) finishing last in the final race of the tie in Nitra. With Ryan Miller back in third though for Australia (24), the night and trophy belonged to Germany, who finished a point clear of Slovenia (25) and another point better off than the Aussie’s in the final standings.

A 48-42 home win over fellow promotion chasing Derby (43 points) secured Runcorn their place back in the top flight after just a season away. Likewise Linlithgow will be making their top flight return after an absence of a year, a 53-37 home win over Calderwood taking them up with two rounds of racing to spare. Brickhill sit third on 47 points and are well placed to join the current top two in division one next year, they go to Beverley next before hosting Derby on the final day. Greenhill (43) and Bradwell (42)—who face each other next week—are also mathematically in contention.

Division Three Cup success last week and promotion this for Mid Cams. After winning at Kelso, 43-47, Emma Louise Kean’s side took their chance to secure a top three finish in division three in their home meeting against Small Heath, Jonathan Kirk scoring a maximum 18 as the Harriers won that, 49-41. Six other teams are still in the hunt for a top three finish, including Claygate, who would have been in a much better position if they hadn’t followed up a win at Bolsover with a home defeat to Cork.