Redcar in the Final

Redcar Bears will go forward to race either Leicester or Poole in the Knockout Cup final after getting the better of the WTF Monarchs by 97-83 on aggregate. We can't have any complaints about the outcome, or about the effort put in by our riders in the second leg.

A disappointed team boss John Campbell said "We didn't do enough in either leg. Sam Masters' machine problem's didn't help. I felt we were still in with a chance if we could have kept it close and got Sam going, but it wasn't to be.

"Next week in the Playoff we will be looking for a few more points at home and I think we will be in with a chance."

Monarchs made a slow start to the match and trailed 16–8 after four heats. At that point Josh´s heat four race win over Kerr was the only thing of note we'd done. We were looking to hit back and that should have happened in heat 5 as Sam had the race in the bag only to stop. Lasse (who had been close to a point in heat one) limited the damage with a spirited last bend outside overtake of Jenkins.

However Sam´s problems were to have an ongoing effect as he was forced to change bikes. We did make inroads in heat 6 with Josh winnIng again over Bears' rock-solid guest Lawson and Sarj taking a good point from Edwards.

Paco lost a spectacular battle against Kerr in heat 7 with Kye trailing but at last we produced a heat 8 ride from Fredriksen and Sarjeant in which they made the gate and held positions. Turning the page in the late-arriving, ink-not-dry programme, we were not out of it.

From then on though we gradually slipped further behind with no more race wins until the final heat. We did get a series of hard-won second places but as we were also picking up the lasts, it wasn't enough.

Paco, probably our most disappointing performer, didn't finish with his usual heat 14 win and the 1-5 we conceded in that confirmed that Redcar were in the final.

All that was left was a flying win for track record holder Josh in the final heat. All of our riders did something over the match but most of them needed to do a bit more. That will be the target for both legs next weekend.