It Was All Happening at Armadale

REPORT Saturday 10th June 2017, 2:12am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Parsons Peebles Monarchs finished up comfortable winners by 56-34 against Redcar tonight, but it was a hard night of racing on a very lively track which some riders handled better than others.

Home star Erik Riss who scored paid 12 said “The track was quite tough, in the beginning it was quite deep and I struggled. I had a crash in my second when I lost my steel shoe. Then I changed something on the bike and it was good. That steel shoe cost me a maximum but it happens.”

We’re looking for a bit of grip in the track but when you add in heavy rain all day Tuesday and Thursday plus more on Friday afternoon, things can be a bit more unpredictable. Not that conditions caused any problems to the likes of Sam Masters and Erik Riss, or Ben Barker, and even though Ricky Wells had to miss his last ride he expressed the wish that the track should be like this every week!

Many fans will have been looking forward to seeing Jason Garrity who has only made 4 Armadale appearances since he first came up with Leicester in 2011. Unfortunately on the first lap of heat 1 he tried an extravagant cutback on the 3rd turn, and spun off. It was announced shortly afterwards that he was withdrawing with a broken bone in his hand.

Monarchs moved smoothly ahead with the first four race wins, both Erik Riss and Ricky Wells doing well to work their way past the faster starting Barker and Wright in heats 3 and 4.

Bears were able to utilise Injury Rider Replacement for Garrity and Barker came in to heat 5. This would have been a fifth home race winner as Erik Riss led, but unfortunately his steel shoe came off and he came down on the next bend trying to improvise. That gave Bears their first race advantage but Monarchs hit back right away with a 5-1 from Sam Masters and Mark Riss over Wright.

Ben Barker took a TR in heat 7 and made a typically wholehearted effort, but he was headed by Ricky Wells, and Max Clegg’s third from the back against Perks meant that the TR heat was drawn.

Up till this point there hadn’t been too many problems for the riders but over the next few races there were a number of incidents – more than we’d like.

Last week we saw Erik Riss excluded after Lasse Bjerre had lost control in front of him. This week there was an even more blatantly wrong decision in heat 8 which had started with a good battle between Mark Riss and Jonas B Andersen. Mark shot to the front but Jonas passed him, but entering lap three Jonas completely lost it on the pits turn, almost stopped, then rolled inwards very close to the white line.

Mark had no real choice but to lay the bike down, and he commented later that he was also confused to see Williamson who had fallen a lap earlier and was sitting inches over the white line close to where Andersen ended up.

While all this was going on Mitchell Davey weaved his way through to the front. The only sensible decision was an exclusion for Andersen, and a 5-0 awarded, but no, once again the rider taking the essential avoiding action was thrown out of the race. Oh for some common sense!

So the decision was a 3-2, a win for Mitchell, and at least he enjoyed it. Erik might well have been beaten by Charles Wright in heat 9, but when Josh Pickering fell in third place, a rerun was rather needlessly ordered. Erik took advantage of the second chance. We did get the 4-2 in heat 10 from Sam and Mark against Ben Barker who was trying everything in every ride.

Heat 11 saw further incidents. Charles Wright led from Ricky Wells but in trying to squeeze inside his opponent, Ricky came off and Max Clegg could not avoid running in to him. This looked a bit nasty but the riders were up fairly quickly.

On the first bend of the rerun Andersen and Wright tangled up, with Wright losing control and falling very awkwardly on the back straight. He was excluded but it was probably his partner who was more to blame. We didn’t see either Wells or Wright in later races.

Heat 12 was a good heat as Barker again gave chase in exciting style against the flying Erik Riss, and further back Mitchell Davey rode a forceful heat to pass Garcia on the final turn.

Only Masters of the programmed riders was available for heat 13 which was a home 4-2, ensuring victory which had obviously looked on the cards for a while.

We weren’t finished with the incidents yet as Max Clegg led heat 14, but Matt Williamson ran into his back wheel, bringing him down against the fence. Again this looked potentially serious but Max did rise and walk away, though he was replaced in the rerun.

This was won by Josh Pickering who had looked quick and controlled all night, and we finished with a 5-1 from Sam and Erik who were the dominant riders on the night.

Full Result Details