Glasgow Tigers v Edinburgh Monarchs

Our 2014 Scotwaste Monarchs rode very well at Ashfield to complete a second victory in three days over our old rivals, and retain the Spring Trophy (awarded for the Air Fence Challenge).

Not surprisingly Craig Cook’s maximum was obviously the main contribution but not far behind were Steve Worrall (just one point dropped, and that by a whisker), Sam Masters and Max Fricke.

Cook and Worrall were the first two race winners, and Aaron Fox managed his best gate so far in the opening race though he was passed by the home men.

Tigers went ahead in heat 3 after Derek Sneddon had to start off 15 metres, not getting his bike going in time. It was a troubled day mechanically for the captain.

We seemed to take a grip of the match over the next three races. Steve Worrall won heat 4, in which Sam Masters sat with him throughout. Theo Pijper actually slipped past Sam at one point but the Aussie cut back into second spot again.

After Craig has won heat 5, we saw another fine covering ride from Sam alongside Justin Sedgmen, putting us 6 ahead.

However we then conceded a disappointingly easy 5-1 in heat 7 to Pijper and Lykke Nielsen, and we lost heat 8 as well, a good race between Worrall and Thomsen who grabbed the win right at the death. Unfortunately Steve hit the air fence after the race and did quite a bit of damage to his machine.

Sam headed Harrison and Lemon in heat 9, and we saw the best of Max in heat 10 with an electric cutback on the first corner to get ahead. It was Berge rather than Wolbert who took up the chase, and with Tigers’ no. 1 at the back we took the lead again.

Cook took heat 11 and it looked for much of heat 12 as though we might get a maximum advantage there. Max and Justin were riding together, but against Rusty Harrison it is the outside rather than the inside you need to cover, and they didn’t do this well enough. Not only did Rusty round them both up, but Justin was caught on the last corner by Thomsen to level the scores again.

Heat 13 looks like being a good one for us this season but on this occasion it was only shared with Craig driving between the Tigers coming off the second bend.

Level with two heats to go. Even though he had to switch bikes, Steve Worrall did a great job again to win heat 14, and Derek got into the action with a third place which put us two ahead. With Cook in the last heat that is always a hopeful position, though it’s hardly fair to keep doing this to him!

He won again as usual, and Sam got third this time to complete a very satisfactory show.