The Leicester Lions surrendered their proud home record to the Somerset Rebels on Saturday.
It was the first occasion that the Harry Jordan Haulage-sponsored Lions have lost a Premier League fixture at home since August 2011, when Newport were the last team to succeed at the Jordan Road Surfacing Stadium.
Both teams were reduced to six riders following injuries sustained during the course of the match that was heading Leicester's way until the visitors outscored the Lions in five of the last six races, to win by the narrowest of margins, 47-46.
From the outset, the Lions moved ahead when Kauko Nieminen beat Jason Doyle, his opposite number in the Somerset team, who passed Jan Graversen for second place.
The Lions increased their lead in the reserves race after the Rebels' Stefan Nielsen fell and broke his collarbone which ruled him out of the remainder of the match.
Down to one rider in the re-run, Tom Perry split the Lions pairing of Robert Branford and Alex Edberg just metres from the finishing line.
The Lions continued to steadily build on their early lead. Kevin Doolan won an important race against Doyle in heat five and, one event later, Leicester scored maximum points through the Nieminen-Graversen partnership.
Graversen featured in the Lions second maximum advantage of the night when he teamed up with Edberg in the eighth race, which extended the home side's lead to 30-18.
When Somerset gained double points through a tactical move in heat nine, the alarm bells remained silent as Leicester still retained a healthy nine points lead with six races remaining.
There was a share of the points in heat 10 after Alex Davies retired with engine problems and, before the end, Nieminen's bike also stopped, forcing him to push his bike for half a lap to the finishing line.
The situation then began to change rapidly for Leicester when, firstly, they lost Edberg with a broken foot in heat 11 and the result ended with a 4-2 advantage for Somerset, who followed up with another identical score in the next race.
The two back-to-back double reversals were followed by another blow in the 13th heat when Magnus Karlsson fell after coming under pressure on the first turn against Josh Grajczonek.
The referee excluded Karlsson from the re-start and Nieminen was powerless to prevent the Somerset pairing of Grajczonek and Doyle from achieving their team's first maximum score of the evening. The result whittled the Lions lead down to a mere point.
Doolan and Branford arrested the decline in the penultimate heat to send the Lions into a last-heat decider.
A second place for either Leicester rider would have guaranteed a home win but Somerset's two Australians, Doyle and Nick Morris, had too much speed and finished ahead of the Lions pairing to give the Rebels the lead for the first time in the meeting – and with it the match points.
"Records are there to be broken and it is naive to think that it would go on indefinitely," said Lions co-promoter Alan Jones.
"It was going to happen sometime but we have to question ourselves after being ahead by 12 points.
"You have, however, to give credit to Somerset who kept nibbling away at our lead and, while we are disappointed to have lost in the manner we did, the standard of racing was excellent and a great advert for the Premier League."
Scores:
Leicester 46: Kauko Nieminen 8+2 bonus, Jan Graversen 9, Lasse Bjerre 6+1, Kevin Doolan 9+1, Magnus Karlsson 6, Alex Edberg 4+2, Robert Branford 4.
Somerset 47: Jason Doyle 13, Kyle Newman 2, Nick Morris 14+1, Alex Davies 2, Josh Grajczonek 11+1, Stefan Nielsen 0, Tom Perry 5.
