Meeting Abandoned After Crashes

Tonight's meeting at Newcastle was abandoned after ten heats with the score standing at 33-27 to the Diamonds. The delays were due to crashes which ruled both Lewis Rose and Dan Bewley out of the match.

Dan's pileup came in heat 11 after he had brilliantly ridden into double figures again, helping us to gain a point we didn't expect in the circumstances.

We don't like riding anywhere with an under strength team, least of all at Newcastle who are going so well, but circumstances dictated that we were riding without Erik Riss and Ryan Fisher tonight.

Sam Masters won the opening heat comfortably, then after a false start in heat two (Lewis Rose warned), Dan Bewley led all the way in the rerun. Max Clegg was briefly in second till passed by Rose, who later fell heavily entering the third corner, leaving us with an awarded 5-1.

Sam had hit a tricky spot on that third corner and it looked as though Lewis had found it as well. Unfortunately he needed a Hospital trip and that meant a lengthy delay while another ambulance arrived.

Racing resumed at 8:05 with the Diamonds comfortably levelling the scores, before we saw a brilliant heat four battle between Dan Bewley and Steve Worrall. Dan got ahead early on and thought passed at one point, swept back ahead by riding a brave wide fourth corner. From then on he repulsed Worrall's continuous challenge, to take one of his best race wins yet.

Sam had to work hard to split the strong Kus / Lindgren pair in heat 5, and Kevin managed to do likewise in heat 6 ahead of Palovaara but behind Robert Lambert.

Heat 7 brought Bewley and Worrall into opposition again, and Dan did almost take the lead round the outside of the second corner, only to almost collect the fence. He had to settle for second which he repeated behind Palovaara in heat 8 which we shared with Max Clegg taking third.

We managed a surprise 4-2 in heat 9, a very good win for Kevin who burst past Kus down the back straight. Max Clegg did likewise to Lindgren late in the race for a very good point.

Heat 10 was a predictable 1-5 as we fielded Mark Riss with Hopwood, which put us six down. 

Unfortunately the fun stopped at heat 11 as Dan made another remarkable attempt to ride the outside of bend two, but he lifted and came down with his bike also wiping out Sam. Sam rose, Dan didn't. After lengthy treatment he did make his way into the ambulance.

Another lengthy delay took us to the three hour mark and probably no-one was too unhappy that the match was then abandoned with the result standing.

Brough And Ready

It’s a jaunt down the A1 for the Border Roofing Monarchs this afternoon as we head for Brough Park to take on the Newcastle Sapphire Engineering Diamonds in the Premier League.

Unfortunately it is a little bit of a make shift Monarchs line-up that head south with Erik Riss missing due to being part of Germany’s under 21 team taking part in the European Championships. Erik would much rather have been with the boys at Newcastle but the German federation threatened a ban if he did not line up for them and that was that. The only facility allowed is a National League guest and Ben Hopwood steps in to deputise.

It appears that rushing back on Friday has done Ryan no favours either as he was seen on crutches after the match and he will miss today’s meeting in a hope another week of rest will do the job. Rider Replacement is the only option with all bar Sam entitled to an extra ride.

Newcastle are one of the form teams in the league just now and destroyed Peterborough 54-38 away from home on Friday night. A powerhouse performance with all of the top 5 being paid for at least 8 points and Lewis Rose racking up paid 11 at reserve also. All of the attention so far has been on Somerset’s run of form and Glasgow’s powerful septet but with matches in hand on both Newcastle cannot be counted out of the reckoning for the major honours come seasons end.

Anything the Monarchs can take today would well be seen as a bonus as we travel perhaps more in hope than expectation but with Dan and Max showing good form and Sam and Kevin having a known liking for the Brough confines perhaps we will surprise. With the lack of home matches raced so far due to the weather the Monarchs could well do with some further away points to cement our playoff position.

Newcastle Sapphire Engineering Diamonds

1 Robert Lambert

2 Victor Palovaara

3 Matej Kus

4 Ludvig Lindgren

5 Stevie Worrall

6 Lewis Rose

7 Danny Phillips

Edinburgh Border Roofing Monarchs

1 Sam Masters

2 Ben Hopwood

3 Mark Riss

4 Ryan Fisher R/R

5 Kevin Wolbert

6 Max Clegg

7 Dan Bewley