Down and Out At Owlerton

REPORT Thursday 14th September 2017, 9:15pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Parsons Peebles Monarchs performed poorly on their third visit to Owlerton this season, going down heavily by 58-34.

Our main targets for league points this weekend obviously are Friday and Saturday, but it would have been nice to put up a bit more of a show here. Sheffield must be sorely tempted to choose us in the Playoffs if we get there.

Team boss John Campbell could not offer any excuses. "Ricky Wells was excellent but I'd have to admit the rest of the team were very disappointing. Although Sam didn't have a great meeting he says he is fit enough and I'm confident that our riders know the importance of our next two matches."

We gated like snails, other than Ricky Wells, and on a night on which there wasn't much passing there was not much we could do about it. Ricky actually recorded the fastest time of the night in heat 3 when heading Lasse Bjerre. Ricky finished on a first class 15 points.

We all know that speedway has a problem with not enough overtaking these days, but that is highlighted when (for example) Georgie Wood is last by a mile in heat 2, then wins heat 4 comfortably with Howarth back in third. Or when Grajczonek wins his first two races very easily then comes a bad last in heat 10.

That was our first decent heat, though we did take a 5-3 from Ricky's TR race in heat 7. Heat 10 was even better with Ricky jetting away, rounding the unbeaten Graversen (who was probably starting to get tired), followed later in the heat by Mark also passing the Dane. Josh Grajczonek was at the back.

We should have finished with a 5-1, Ricky and Sam leading all the way to the last bend with Sam riding out at the fence. However Bjerre intruded by barging through on the final corner into second.

Sam Masters was back in action though he wasn't at his best, while Erik Riss was afflicted by terrible gating. Josh Pickering ran into machine trouble and switched to a Riss machine for heat one, stopped in his next and never got near the opposition in any of his rides. Precious little else to say except well done Tigers you are the best team.

At Armadale tomorrow night we will be much better when the Glasgow Tigers come visiting.

Full Result Details