Edinburgh Monarchs v Plymouth Devils

REPORT Friday 15th July 2011, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Fairly heavy drizzle pre-meeting made this match rather an endurance test, one-sided and far too long without much good racing.

The major incident of the night was a frightening crash in heat 7 from which Mark Simmonds seems to have been fortunate enough to emerge with only a broken wrist.

He was caught between Jesper Kristiansen and Tim Webster approaching the first corner, and burst forward at speed straight into and through the fence boards. He flew high into a lighting pylon before landing.

Early signs were hopeful as the veteran walked between ambulances before leaving the stadium, but the crowd had to stand around for 40 minutes while it happened.

Most of the time the home riders piled up the points, though heat 6 showed the difficulty of passing in the conditions as Kevin Wolbert queued up behind Kyle Hughes and Hynek Stichauer without finding a way past.

There was a first paid maximum for Kyle Howarth (whose presence makes Edinburgh a much more impressive side) though he was lucky to make the rerun of heat 4 after falling at the front.

Also unbeaten were Andrew Tully, looking very determined, and Craig Cook who pulled off thrilling overtakes on Devils? guest Jason Lyons in heats 13 and 15.

Lyons though was frankly a poor substitute for the missing Ben Barker. His recent form has been good but he seemed to settle far too easily for a series of modest seconds and thirds, perhaps not fancying the conditions.

There was little positive to be said for the other visiting riders, other than a reasonably competitive Kyle Hughes and one or two moments of promise from Jaimie Pickard.

Full Result Details