TOUGH NIGHT AT THE OTA

NEWS Wednesday 3rd June 2009, 7:53pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Ryan Fisher and Matthew Wethers rode brilliantly as we put up a fight at Somerset, but the over-riding memory of the event will be the failure to arrive by Thomas H Jonasson.

Thomas missed a flight from Berlin to East Midlands Airport due he told us to traffic. He was then booked on a flight to Heathrow which departed from an airport 60 miles away from the first one, and John Campbell and Cammy Fraser made the dash south to collect him.

Again he missed the flight and we have still to clarify what happened. We are conscious of the recent family bereavement which Thomas has had to suffer and of course are making allowances for that, but we simply cannot have a rider not arriving for a scheduled meeting.

Remarkably, Somerset also had a late arrival in Emil Kramer, and on arrival at the stadium, having heard from John what had happened with Thomas, I met with the Rebels officials who clearly (and not unreasonably) thought that Emil and Thomas were on the same flight!

They were asking if we would agree to postpone the match start till 8pm to allow the riders to arrive. At that point they were not seeking an advantage as they thought both teams were one man short. Knowing the true circumstances we could have insisted on going ahead at 7:30 but that would have been pretty unfair.

Therefore quad racing was run from 7:30 till 8. At that point Rebels' team manager Ronnie Russell started a drawn-out grading session and was attempting to follow that with a parade, with a fairly obvious motive. At this I complained to referee Dave Watters who tried to speed things up.

We were not in a strong position as we had turned up understrength, and had asked to borrow a junior, otherwise we would have insisted on a 7:30 start ? another reason why the non-arrival of Thomas cost us dear.

We did borrow Matt Bates who was coming along to test an engine he had just had back from the tuner, and it lasted a lap before it blew. A disaster for him and thereafter we ran two heats with just one rider.

The other riders knuckled down and fought hard. Ryan and Matthew scored 5-1s in their first two races, and we led by 2 points after heat 8 in spite of having no number 5.

We dropped behind after that and in spite of continuing excellent by Fisher and Wethers plus useful points from Summers and Tully, we went 10 down with 2 heats left.

This could have been a big chance. Michal Rajkowski had been riding fast and wide though he had only scored 3 points, and we handed him the black and white hat along with Partner Summers. Gathercole was in the home pair ? but he exceeded two minutes and went back 15 metres. Their effective reserve Sedgeman had had 7 rides so they had Tom Brown at the gate ? and to our disappointment he won with Gathercole passing Rajkowski for the point.

That was that, though we were still able to enjoy a thrilling last heat won by Wethers who passed Kramer on his superb inside line, with Fisher third and Johnston at the back. Final score 50-40.

Both Jonasson and Kramer were fined as were the home promotion for their delaying tactics after 8pm.

Full Result Details