Redcar Bears v Edinburgh Monarchs

REPORT Thursday 20th April 2006, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Losing by one point is always disappointing, and this was a very unlucky defeat.

Should Rusty have ridden? Clearly not, but that's hindsight - a normal performance from him or use of rider replacement would have given us a certain win. As it was, the team performed very well in their first visit and will gell into a good side in the near future.

Certainly Henrik is getting a bit better with each outing, and he started here with a tapes-to-flag win over Gary Havelock - the first person to beat the ex-World Champ at his home track. Henrik set a new track record which was still standing at the end of the night.

Derek won heat 2 from the back, thanks to a strong burst into the pits (3rd/4th) bend to pass Hargreaves, and there was a fine battle between Matthew and Kevin Little in heat 3, won by Matty who cleverly switched to the inside after Kevin had passed.

Rusty's problems became apparent in heat 4 as he trailed in at the back, but we still had the race winner as Derek led the way for the second time.

Four race winners but only a 2-point advantage, which we doubled in heat 5 as Henrik won again!

However Rusty was toiling in heat 6, a home 5-1 to their opening pairing. For those who didn't know the reason behind it, Rusty's performance was puzzling.

William had stopped on parade and trailed in heat 3, but he clicked into gear to win heat 7, and Matthew was again involved in a fine heat as he passed and re-passed with Chris Kerr before grabbing second.

In heat 8 we did it again with an easy 5-1 to Derek and Theo, by a wide margin, and with an 8-point lead things were looking very good.

The main concern seemed to be not going too far ahead at the wrong time, but in fact we needn't have worried. Even with unbeaten Derek Sneddon in to partner Rusty, we lost a disappointing 5-1 in heat 9.

Havelock won heat 10 but William and Matthew easily shared it, but we lost our second unbeaten record in heat 11 as Henrik's bike reared at the tapes and dumped him off the back. Theo won the rerun though, and Chris Kerr had to remount for second after Giffard packed up. We were now 5 points up.

Sean still had to take his third ride, and he was left in heat 12 in which we conceded a 2-4. Derek came into heat 13 for Rusty, but we lost that 1-5 and suddenly we were a point down.

Heat 14 had always looked like a handy one, and William and Derek comfortably tooka 5-1 to put us into heat 15 three ahead. We needed to avoid a 1-5.

It was a very tight choice between 5 riders for the final race, and the nod went to William and Matthew. Redcar won the toss and chose 2 & 4, and the Bears made the better starts with Kevin Little dropping down hard on William entering the first corner.

William had no chance to turn, colliding with Kevin as both riders fell.

Referee Dowling made the crucial decision that William was out, when most would have surely gone for an "all four".

Matthew tried hard but the home men led all the way in the rerun, and we had to swallow our second successive one-point defeat.

Full Result Details