An 8,000-strong army of fans from around the globe will descend on the Norfolk Arena in King's Lynn tomorrow night for the BriSCA F1 Stock Car World Final.

And the big question will be, can 55 years of hurt for Norfolk fans come to an end – the last East Anglian driver to win the event was Dereham's Bob Reeve, at Belle Vue, Manchester, back in 1958.

The race returns to the Arena for the third time in its 59-year history and is another feather in the cap for Buster Chapman's Saddlebow Road venue, which has become the recent home of speedway's World Team Cup event.

'It is a fantastic honour for the Norfolk Arena to be given an event as prestigious as the BriSCA F1 Stock Car World Final to stage and is testament once again to the incredible work which Keith Chapman and his team have done to transform the stadium into the world class venue which it is now regarded as by sports on both two and four wheels,' said Paul Butler, Trackstar Racing Promoter.

'We expect around 8,000 fans who will have travelled from all over the globe to be with us.

'One ferry which travelled over to Harwich had 921 fans booked on it.'

Norwich ace Matt Newson is the biggest hope of success on a track he knows like the back of his hand, but he failed to qualify from his semi-final at Sheffield last month and will have to scrap from the back of a 30-car grid in the consolation semi-final just to sneak onto the very back row of the world grid.

'I will be giving it everything I can to make the grid through the consolation semi-final and if I can get on the grid although I will be at the back the rest can write me off at their peril,' he said.

World champion Lee Fairhurst (Bolton) has had a perfect qualifying campaign and will start the big race on pole position with the hard hitting Ryan Harrison (Kettering) alongside.

The mainland European entry is headed by Ron Kroonder and Louw Wobbes whilst New Zealand's Steve Pribicevich and Philip Ogle together with top sprint driver Josh Pelkry from the USA have been perfecting their technique in unfamiliar UK cars over the past few weeks.

There is also racing tonight including the overseas F1 Stock Cars and F2 Stock Cars.