JUST A 7-POINT LEAD

NEWS Friday 23rd October 2009, 0:36am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The track was wet and slippery and Monarchs could do no better than a 7-point advantage against King's Lynn, which will leave the Stars confident that they can win the KO Cup in Wednesday's second leg.

Monarchs will have other ideas and of course they only went down (and unluckily too) by 6 at the Norfolk Arena last Tuesday.

In spite of the depressing conditions, the teams put on a show. It was hard-fought, there were points thrown away on both sides and there was some fine riding by several riders.

All that is the stuff which makes good speedway and things which no-one can have any complaints about.

The unacceptable element of tonight's meeting was supplied by the refereeing, which frankly left a sour taste.

Jim McGregor can be a good referee because he can be strong in the face of intimidation and he knows the rules. Where he can stray offside is by applying the rules in a way apparently designed to highlight his own part in the proceedings.

In heat 7 Kalle Katajisto pulled back from the tapes with a carburettor problem. He toured round the first corner a long way behind the others, but opened the throttle down the back straight as Sanchez fell on the pits corner.

Therefore he was under power. But the rule invoked was a different one - Katajisto was excluded for "not making a bona fide attempt to race".

This laughable rule does exist, trust me, even though it is not clear what the punishment should be. It is rule 13.5. It is very hard to think of circumstances in which the rule should be used, and heat 8 was certainly not one of them.

We then had heat 12. Tully and Summers got the better of the first bend, Summers swept round the outside to lead. However Sanchez, who had been almost a complete length behind Summers, fell at the first corner. His front wheel may or may not have been clipped as Summers started his turn.

However that was irrelevant as Summers never deviated a single inch from his line from gate 3. The question should have been whether or not Sanchez deserved a place in the rerun.

But Summers was excluded. Frankly I can't think of a more unjustified exclusion in 13 years at Armadale and it is impossible to imagine any acceptable thought process leading to either of these decisions.

These events cast a shadow over what would otherwise have been a very good contest in the conditions.

We had on the one side Fisher riding with coolness and skill until he unfortunately spun off in the mud in heat 15. We had Wolbert slightly unsure early on but sensational in his last couple of rides.

We had excellence too from Tully and Wethers. Then we had Ward showing some very clear signs of why he is so highly rated, especially when controlling a big wheelie on the last lap of heat 5.

And the main man at reserve was Jan Graversen, who showed the virtues of fast gating and steady riding when others found these qualities elusive - he scored 14 points.

But no match can be satisfactory when the refereeing is the main topic post match. It is an unmistakable sign of bad refereeing, and that is what we had tonight.