DISAPPOINTING DEFEAT AT REDCAR

The Border Roofing Monarchs went down by 43-47 at Redcar tonight, which will probably be rated one of the shock results of the season, but from our point of view there are no excuses, we deserved to lose after a poor performance.

For most of the evening only our heat leader trio achieved anything and when they dropped some points later on, there was no backup.

We had started with a 5-1 in the opening race, from Sam Masters and Erik Riss, but that proved to be only only time Erik beat an opponent.

He touched the tapes in heat two in which the scores were levelled.

The next four race winners were Wolbert, Cook, Masters and Cook again, but it was only a battling third by Max Clegg over Graversen in heat 6 which edged us ahead.

Justin Sedgmen finally joined the match by jetting away in heat 7 with Wolbert backing him up, and many must have thought that was the usual smooth Monarchs' machine getting going with a 6-point lead.

But it wasn't. Sedgmen followed it up with his second last place of the evening in heat 8, the one we rely on him covering when r/r is operating, and we were back in the melting pot again.

Cook won his third race in heat 9 and at this stage looked invincible, Bjerre had only Bears third race win in heat 10 but we shared it, and Masters won heat 11 to keep is that narrow two points ahead.

Kevin Wolbert had to work very hard to get second in heat 12, passing Adam Roynon by using the outside line which was deep and difficult all night.

So we were level and relying on our old faithfuls in heat 13. For once, they couldn't deliver. Sam was away well enough but locked up, and at some stage in the race lost his steel shoe. Craig came through to challenge on the pits bend but was pushed into the deep stuff by Robson - quite fairly - and dropped out of the race.

That lost us a point because incredibly Stuart Robson fell on the back straight on the last lap, but only the shoeless Masters was left to take advantage.

Another dismal gate by Sedgmen in heat 14 sealed the defeat with Danish new boy Jonas B Andersen romping home to the understandable delight of the Bears' fans. If the track was quite tricky, it didn't upset the Dane on his first appearance.

We were now in the unusual position of needing a shared race to salvage a point, and Sam and Kevin managed a 4-2.

The Bears obviously are a much better balanced team with Andersen at four and Roynon at reserve but that can't hide how below-par our display was. Sedgmen was so frustrating as he can be, and clutch problems for Erik Riss (regular apparently) are costing him dear with poor starts.

Plenty of food for thought there.

IN SEARCH OF MORE LEAGUE POINTS

The Border Roofing Monarchs are in action at Redcar on Thursday evening in the Premier League and the target is come away with as many league points as possible to close the gap on league leaders Somerset.

Although completely ignored by the Sky Speedway commentators on Wednesday night the Border Roofing Monarchs sit in second place in the Premier League and a win by more six points will take us level on points with the Rebels at the top of the league.

The Border Roofing Monarchs will be without the injured Rob Branford but everyone else will be present although it will be a rush for Erik Riss. Between cancelled and delayed flights he arrived in the UK later than anticipated and will make a last minute dash from Newcastle Airport to get to the track.

The Bears introduce new signing Jonas B Andersen to their team and that pushes Adam Roynon down to reserve. That will give the Bears their strongest team of the season.