Peterborough Panthers v Edinburgh Monarchs

This looked like a very tough assignment against the much-changed Panthers, fresh from an easy win over Sheffield in the quarter final.

It was very pleasing to see us keep a tight grip on the whole event, even without Kevin and with Sam struggling badly through illness. That was some handicap.

However any team that has the Craig Cook / Justin Sedgmen pair certainly has a chance. What a performance they gave, three 5-1s in their races together.

They shot away in heat 1 to give us the morale boosing start we always like, they did it again in heat 5 even though they didn’t make the gate, and they easily beat Ben Barker in heat 11.

The other major success was Erik on a track which allows him to display his full-blooded racing style. He can’t ride like this at Armadale but he tucks the left leg back and winds it on, racing in the dirt. That was good enough to win him heats 10 (against Tungate) and 12 (against Thomsen) though he was narrowly pipped in heat 7 by Barker after leading all the way. It looked as if Erik had shut off slightly early in that one.

Our other race winner was Rob Branford who had a really good victory in heat 2, by a fair margin. He added another good point in heat 7 to keep us in front at that point.

It was a fearful struggle for Sam who was very much under the weather. He managed a couple of second places which helped us reach the acceptable final score.

Rob ‘s 4 points were also significant, and while Max had some reasonable starts and good moments within races, he didn’t string an effective 4 laps together unfortunately.

So it’s two points to make up to get us through to the final.