Title Partner
REPORT Friday 25th September 2009, 10:00pm
Edinburgh Monarchs
The Scotwaste Monarchs rode well to defeat King?s Lynn but there was a feeling of frustration that the winning margin was only 13 points.
The Stars were not especially impressive though they stuck to their task and took their chances when they arose. They had only two race winners but one of them was in an 8-1 heat advantage.
Monarchs had too many last places (8) and three of them stemmed from the pivotal moment of the match, the heat 8 crash between Eklof and Summers. Prior to that Aaron had looked invincible, even when he missed the start, but his machine was damaged in what seemed a quite nasty tumble.
He was OK thankfully but had to ride Wolbert?s bike in the rerun, then suffered two engine failures at the gate in his final two rides after trying to sort out his own bike.
We can only speculate over how many points were lost in a crash which certainly seemed to be caused by the visiting reserve moving quite sharply to his right on the run to the first turn.
We started strongly as Fisher and Rajkowski took 5 points from heat 1. Ward was very close to catching the Raj at the last gasp but the ref gave our man the nod.
Aaron Summers flew to a heat 2 win in the fastest time of the night, but Byron Bekker?s attempts to overcome a bad start saw him lose ground eventually.
Andrew Tully flew through the tapes in heat 3 and was replaced by Summers. This was a fine race with Schramm initially leading, passed by the flying Summers. Sanchez pushed Wethers to the back but Matthew came back to pick off both Stars before the end for a 5-1.
Kevin Wolbert made a bad start and had to work hard to pass Graversen, then also closing on Topinka before the end of the race. Byron was tailed off again.
Tully turned in a great ride in heat 5, chasing race leader Eklof all the way before racing inside him on the final turn. Eklof had a post-race moan about the pass. Ward was at the back and kept there by Wethers.
Fisher led all the way again in heat 6 after a strong first bend, bit this time Rajkowski didn?t start well and finished pointless.
Wolbert and Summers flew to a 5-1 in heat 7 over the Stars? middle pair, the one which usually gains so many advantages. They were not on song tonight.
We were now 12 up and Sanchez came in to heat 8 on a TR. The Summers crash caused a delay, and as we eventually found out would render Aaron ineffective for the rest of the night.
Rajkowski won the heat though, restricting King?s Lynn to a 5-3.
We regained that 2 point gap as Tully beat Topinka in heat 9, and we had another excellent show from Rajkowski and Fisher in heat 10 taking 5 over Sanchez/Schramm.
That allowed the Stars to use another TR, and this time it counted. Summers stopped at the tapes, Wolbert made a poor start and Eklof and Ward combined to take the 8 points.
That put a bit of a damper on things in the home camp, and we still had another ride to give Byron who was not on song. That was in heat 12, shared and won by Tully.
Heat 13 was shared as well, won by Fisher but with Wolbert unable to find space to pass after another slow start.
When Summers stopped at the tapes again in heat 14, we were again restricted to a shared heat with Wethers winning.
We needed to extent the 9-point lead we had, and even against Topinka and Ward, we got a fairly easy 5-1 after Fisher and Tully had brilliantly carved up the first turn.
So a 13-point lead we have, and we will need the best score at King?s Lynn this season if we are to retain the Premier Trophy. The previous smallest margin is 16 ? by us.
HERMISTON MONARCH OF THE MATCH: Andrew Tully.
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