Newcastle Diamonds v Edinburgh Monarchs

The track was heavy and difficult at Newcastle but nothing like as awful as the surface we encountered there last season.

Newcastle have turned their season round, because they were so bad at the start of the season that they could put in the ex-Newport no. 1 in place of a struggling reserve. No such option was available for other teams who had done a bit better. Such are the rewards for failure in this sport of ours.

Because of this they are very unlikely to lose at home again this season and may even make the Playoffs. It was not a surprise that we lost last Sunday but once again we could draw considerable comfort from the brilliant display by Kevin W?lbert.

As we often do, we started with a race advantage as Ryan beat Kenni Larsen and Michal took third. Aaron won heat 2 but Matthew?s efforts in the next one ended with him in the fence after passing Derek Sneddon.

That was an ever-present danger with the track as it was. It did though make the racing more eventful than we see at some venues.

Our next race win was Ryan in heat 5, heading Sneddon and King, and at this point it seemed the American was in for a good night.

Kevin had a couple of seconds in his early rides and by the time he came out in heat 9, it was TR time. Again he took second and with Derek Sneddon falling we had a 5-3.

A 5-1 loss in heat 12, this time with the inconsistent Aaron Summers at the back, put us 12 down, so Ryan came out in black and white in heat 13. Kevin made a good start in this and Ryan surged past everyone, putting us on an 8-1 as they entered the third bend ? only for Ryan to fall off.

We?ve seen it before sadly and with that went our chances of salvaging anything from the meeting. However we did enjoy a superb ride by Kevin in the rerun to sweep round the powerful home pair.

After another 5-1 loss in heat 14 we had some more fun from Kevin with an even better ride to take heat 15 from the same home duo. A 54-38 loss but at least with something to savour.