Aaron Summers says Glasgow have been handed a major boost to their Premier League title bid – and has urged his team-mates to join him in making it count.
The Tigers face Plymouth over two legs this weekend in the quarter finals of the play-offs.
But the Devils will go into the meetings without their No 1 Ryan Fisher after he sensationally quit on the eve of the fixtures – returning to his native USA for family reasons.
The Devon club look set to lean on guests on Friday and Sunday to fill in the gaps, with Todd Kurtz already absent through injury, but look likely to use rider replacement for Fisher’s rides.
Glasgow are bidding to overcome their League Cup final defeat to Edinburgh and Summers hopes that the disappointment of the weekend will also help spur his team-mates on to better things.
The Tigers skipper, who top scored in both legs of the final, said: “We’re at the crunch now. This weekend is everything – we’ve got to put everything into it.
“We’ve fallen a little bit lucky with Ryan Fisher pulling out of the Plymouth team, so hopefully that gives us a little bit more of a chance and we can pull it off. That would be awesome.
“I’ll face anyone with the way I’m going at the minute – it doesn’t matter who is there – but it’s definitely going to help us.
“We had a good score at Plymouth earlier on in the year. Hopefully all the boys can do the same again and the defeats over the weekend will give them a little kick up the backside and they’ll think, right, we really need to do something.
“I’m sure they will all be up for it and I would imagine Stewart (Dickson) will be helping any of the boys that were struggling this week and making sure they’re all good.
“I don’t see there being a lot of fans travelling from Plymouth – it’s a hell of a long way – so hopefully the Glasgow fans can get behind us and we’ll do the job.”
Summers has been Mr Consistent for Glasgow in recent weeks and moves to the No 5 slot for Friday’s meeting. He puts his good form down to a combination of confidence and good machinery.
He added: “I’ve been working so hard lately and putting a lot of funds back into the bikes and making sure everything is perfect. It’s all working and the bikes are working great.
“I got the new engines, which are doing a good job for me, and one of the engines I was having a bit of trouble with I’ve finally sorted it out.”
The most significant change for the Tigers comes in the swapping of places between Victor Palovaara and James Sarjeant – the former’s average overtaking the latter, meaning the Englishman drops back down into the reserve berth and the Swede is in the main body of the team for the first time since he signed for the club in the middle of last year. Palovaara will ride at No 2 on Friday.