At Last!!!

NEWS Sunday 15th January 2017, 9:16am

by Howard Williams

  Edinburgh Monarchs

After standing one step below top spot on the podium for the previous two years Sam Masters produced a sterling nights work to first catch and then overtake Justin Sedgmen to finally claim his first Australian senior title at the final round at Kurri Kurri.

It's not worth dwelling too much on the final because the title had already been decided by then. For the record in the final Sam was in gate one but did not have the best of starts and had got out of shape even before turn one and found himself looking at three back tyres. There may have been some slight contact with the fast starting Brady Kurtz but in the overall scheme of things it didn't seem to bother Sam and he was happy enough to cruise around for the duration of the race. Kurtz won from Nick Morris with Troy Batchelor in third.

The anti climax of the final didn't do justice to the slow build up of tension all through the meeting. At the start of the night most good judges had boiled it down to bc a two horse race with Sedgmen starting the night three points ahead of Masters. His first ride of the night saw Masters gate in second but he was then clinical in diving inside Brady Kurtz to win the heat. Meanwhile Sedgmen out of gate four had no answer to Batchelor's good start in their heat and the net result was one point clawed back. The difference was now two points.

In his second ride Masters exhibited the classic "gate and gone" heat where he gated brilliantly and increased his lead all race. Not fantastic as a spectacle but the Masters fans in the crowd didn't care. Sam was sending out a strong message to Sedgmen that he had definitely come to play and he was not laying down. Sedgmen had endured a nightmare second ride after gating in the lead but being picked off by Mason Campton and very nearly by Max Fricke as well. Another point gone and now it was getting interesting with just one point in it. One long time speedway fan near me gave an opinion that Sedgmen's riding indicated he seemed like he was trying not to lose rather than busting a gut to try and win. I was in no position to disagree.

Now the meeting swung in Sam's favour. Masters (red) was drawn against Sedgmen (blue) and both got away well with Masters narrowly in the lead going into turn one. Then Sedgmen had a rare lapse and Dave Watt got by in he back straight followed soon after by Jordan Stewart. Stewart's challenge was short lived and Sedgmen was soon back to third but that's the way it stayed. Two points gained and Masters was now one in front overall, but the momentum was all in Masters favour with Sedgmen not yet winning a heat and having to turn things around fairly quickly if he wanted to figure in the fight for the championship. The unspoken thought of many at this point was that Sam had one hand on the trophy already because everything seemed to be going his way and Sedgmen didn't seem to be the same rider we had seen in the first three rounds.

The fourth ride put one more nail in the Sedgmen coffin. Masters showed steely determination to out gate Batchelor and win impressively, but in Sedgmen's heat he had come across a fast gating Rohan Tungate and had only managed second place which could have easily been third with a fast finishing Morris nearly catching Sedgmen on the line. Masters now two up and looking good.

The final heat ride saw Masters lower his colours to Max Fricke who had wanted to finish on a high note. Fricke had earlier been robbed of a win by an exploding engine and was out of contention but wanted the crowd to know he was more than capable of seeing off the likely new champion. No great damage done as Sedgmen had remarkably failed to win a heat all night in recording another second place, this time behind Brady Kurtz. For an instant Sedgmen had got his nose in front up the inside of the fast starting Kurtz but Kurtz had the better line into the turn and was able to repel the Sedgmen challenge.

Now the job in front of him was glaringly obvious to Sedgmen, win the semi final, then win the final and hope Masters had a shocker. As it was Sedgmen only just scraped into the semi final with last pick of the gates and he ended up in yellow. Justin deliberately held back a little off the start and cut back up the inside but that could only advance him as far as second behind Nick Morris. Morris then rode a faultless four laps to keep Sedgmen behind him. That was the championship decided and Sam Masters was the new champion !! The only slightly sad part was that the title wasn't won with a Masters victory and he didn't enjoy the luxury of an on track celebration. Never mind, the trophy doesn't have room for victory photos, only names, and it will be the Masters name that will appear next to the numbers 2017 on the Duke Of Edinburgh trophy

Unfortunately it wasn't a fantastic night all round for Monarchs riders with Josh Pickering finishing well down the score charts on the night. The upside is he will have had a very early insight into travelling large distances in between frequent racing so he will certainly know what to expect when he hits the UK in March. We wish him well on his speedway journey