Three Points For Monarchs and None for the Witches

REPORT Saturday 17th June 2017, 2:42am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

We use that as a heading because it looked such an unlikely outcome for much of the evening. If we’ve ever had cause to use the phrase “We got out of jail” then it was tonight with a 48-40 result in favour of the Parsons Peebles Monarchs.

Ricky Wells emerged as the top home scorer one week after he damaged his ribs in a crash last Friday. He said “I had an ignition problem in my first ride, and I thought it was going to be one of these nights – I’ve had a few of them this year. But I was happy with the way I finished especially winning heat 15 which I haven’t done for a while. Pleased the team got the win and I hope Mark is OK.

“The track was difficult but we were looking at the weather forecasts and there was no rain forecast. So they watered as they had to do and then I think we had a shower for about an hour. They are not getting much luck.”

We had trailed 18-24 after heat 7 and still by 35-36 at heat 12, so how did Monarchs win? On another lively track we managed to score two 5-0 heat advantages, in heats 8 and 14, so that certainly had something to do with it. On the other hand we did have three important engine failures. And brilliant displays by Ricky Wells and Sam Masters were also crucial to the final tally.

The home heat leader trio in fact scored 30 points from only 11 completed rides, with Erik Riss the fastest man on show.

It really was some night. A few crashes, the most serious involving Mark Riss who has in the end been diagnosed with dislocated fingers, and also some mechanical problems with three riders stopping in the first four heats and then Sam in the last race.

Mitchell Davey (heat 2) and Ricky Wells (heat 4) both stopped in their first heats, and Justin Sedgmen for the Witches stopped in heat 3. Later Sam Masters stopped round the first turn of heat 15.

However Ricky came back with a brilliant 11 points from his next four heats and both Masters and Sedgmen had otherwise excellent evenings.

Monarchs had dropped behind when Wells stopped in heat 4, and things got worse. Rory Schlein beat Sam to the third turn in heat 6 and Sam came to grief trying to turn tight. This had disastrous consequences for Mark Riss who narrowly avoided Sam but clattered the home straight fence, with the result that he was ferried off to Hospital after a lengthy delay.

In the following heat Ricky Wells had to battle past Heeps for second spot behind Sedgmen and and that point the score was 18-24.

Kyle Newman fell while leading heat 8 though, and Nathan Greaves fell early in the rerun, gifting a 5-0 to Max Clegg (the Injury Rider Replacement) and Josh Pickering who were both finding conditions tricky.

Heat 9 looked like being shared with flying Erik Riss on his way to his third win, but Rory Schlein (who stared with two wins) came off while protecting his partner, another gift which put us a point ahead!

Masters brilliantly passed race leader Sedgmen by going wide into the dirt to share heat 10, and Ricky Wells did it from the gate against Danny King in heat 11. Still one point ahead. Sedgmen then became the first man to take a point from Erik Riss, with Connor Mountain taking third from Pickering, so with three races left the Witches were back in front!

Heat 13 was thus the biggest heat of the season so far. Monarchs rode a brilliant opening lap to get on a 5-1 but Danny King fell attempting a big outside move, so it had to be rerun. This time Rory Schlein got into second behind Wells but another superb wide pass by Masters set up the 5-1, and suddenly Monarchs were 3 ahead.

Still heat 14 was going to be vital, and Cameron Heeps led on the opening lap. Nathan Greaves fell at the back, and amazingly Heeps also fell on the fourth corner which meant both Witches were ruled out of the rerun and for the second time, Clegg and Pickering took 5 points to ensure a win on the night.

Ipswich now needed an advantage from the last race to get a point, but even though Sam Masters didn’t get past the opening bends, another brilliant Ricky Wells win left the unfortunate visitors pointless.

Full Result Details