SAM WINS THE THIRD LEG

NEWS Wednesday 7th January 2015, 1:25pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Scotwaste Monarchs excelled themselves in the third leg of the Australian Championships at Undera today, with Sam Masters winning from Max Fricke, ahead of the other finalists Doyle and North.

This means that all three Monarchs are involved in a tremendous battle for the second and third places overall behind Doyle who seems to have the title sewn up.

Sam won his first four heats before dropping a point to Doyle, while Max also won four after losing to Sam first time out. He was the only one to beat Doyle in the qualifiers, and the three 14-pointers (Masters, Fricke and Doyle) went straight to the A Final.

It wasn’t such a good meeting for Justin Sedgmen who scored 9 in the qualifiers then touched the tapes in the B Final. As is usual in Australian meetings, gate positions were important when the leading riders met.

Reigning champion Chris Holder missed the meeting after crashing in practise and apparently breaking his wrist. That meant realistically that there were 8 established riders chasing the 7 slots in B and A Finals, and it turned out that the one missing out was Josh Grajczonek who could only score 8.

The aggregate totals have closed right up now, other than for first place where it would take a disaster for Jason Doyle to prevent him landing a well-deserved title win in Saturday’s finale at Kurri-Kurri. This will make up for unluckily missing out last year.

Doyle has 51, Justin Sedgmen is still equal second on 37 with Max Fricke, Sam Masters has 36 and Dakota North 35.