Edinburgh Monarchs v Redcar Bears

REPORT Friday 19th August 2011, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Edinburgh went a long way to wiping out memories of recent poor displays with a very strong and solid performance to wipe out Redcar.

The Bears were certainly disappointing, but Jason Lyons and Aaron Summers were both in good form, pocketing 21 points from their first six rides between them before running into the powerhouse that is the Kevin Wolbert-Craig Cook duo on top form.

Robert Branford can be absolved of criticism because he is a trier whose tenacity will surely be turned into points one day. The rest of the side though offered very little in either effort or achievement.

The home side didn?t have a weak link which isn?t something that has been said too often of the Scotwaste Monarchs this season.

The track looked in great condition early on and Lyons was just 0.1 sec outside the track record winning heat 1 ? with Wolbert pushing him all the way to the line.

Heat 2 was a real cracker, and maybe a glimpse of why National League racing can be so enjoyable. Byron Bekker, Robert Branford and Kyle Howarth swapped places throughout before Bekker sailed home for a great win.

Andrew Tully and Matthew Wethers forced their way past Gary Havelock on the first lap of heat 3 as the home team started to gain the upper hand, then Summers looked in fine form winning heat 4 stylishly.

After that, the drizzle started to affect track conditions, though riders prepared to attack the track could still get round pretty well. Neither Wolbert nor Cook dropped another point after their opening rides, and there were good contributions from the home reserves.

Howarth looked back to his best, while Bekker followed his heat 2 win with two falls. Undaunted, he chased and harried Havelock in heat 14, outside and in, and was rewarded with one of the best paid wins he?s ever likely to have achieved.

To finish with we had a fine battle between Summers and Wolbert in the early stages of heat 15, completing a pretty satisfactory night for the Armadale supporters.

Full Result Details