Berwick Bandits v Edinburgh Monarchs

REPORT Saturday 30th March 2013, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Our 54th racing season got under way at Berwick on Saturday night, and short of winning we had very little to complain about after going down 47-45.

We didn’t start very well and left ourselves little bit too much to do as we came back in the latter stages.

Familiar territory for Craig in heat 1 as the race was stopped because he got too fast a start. It won’t be the last time. However he had very little difficulty winning the restart. Derek was contesting third out of the second bend but slewed across the straight and dropped well back.

A very nice second corner by Jozsef in heat 2 saw him glide through to the front. Barrett chased and wasn’t far away, with Jozsef holding very tight and just managing to negotiate the fourth corner each time by flicking round the grass. Marcel was well back and the scores were level.

Smith and Wethers proved to be the best home pair and they took an easy 5-1 in heat 3. It was the first ride for Max Fricke and he was third for a bit until he fell on the first bend of lap two.

Claus was too eager in heat 4 and went through the tapes. Off 15 metres, he was quickly on the tail of Barrett, but going into lap two Jozsef suddenly came to grief in second place. Fortunately no-one hit him.

Next shot, Claus again made up on the pack very speedily and cut past Barrett with ease. Shortly he was pressing Aspegren, but ran out of time to make the second pass.

It was obvious Matthew Wethers was keener than ever to do well, and he rode a great race to hold off the hard-pressing Craig Cook in heat 5. This was the second fastest time of the night, after heat 1. Derek was at the rear again so we were now 8 down.

Ashworth beat Vissing in heat 6 but the focus of attention was on third spot, with Marcel Helfer getting a good point narrowly from Bellego.

We might have shared heat 7 also with Edberg a surprise winner, but Ficke could not hold off Aspegren for third place. That made the score 26-16 and we had the chance of a TR in heat 8.

Tabaka was the obvious choice with Sneddon being pointless. It should have been a chance to close the gap right up but we allowed Bellego to get clear, and could only manage a 5-3. At least Derek was off the mark.

Claus got his first win in heat 9, giving Matthew Wethers his first defeat, but Marcel was well at the back, and although Theo got a good win in heat 10, Max was off the pace. We were still 8 down.

Craig was back on the winning trail in heat 11, with Derek managing a second point to complete his evening – 6 down now, and with strong pairings in heats 13 and 15 you just never know!

We had to cover the other two heats as well, and we might have hoped for better than a shared race in heat 12 in which Smith took the win from Pijper and Tabaka (replacing Helfer).

Craig was in class of his own again in heat 13, but we needed Claus to make a good gate off the outside, and he didn’t. We were still 6 down which meant that Bandits could make sure of the win in heat 14.

It was a win for Jozsef in spite of Matthew’s close attention, but again Max was pointless so the home side had their victory.

We finished on a high with a pretty comfortable 5-1 from Cook and Vissing, and a 2-point defeat had to be regarded as a decent start to the season.

Full Result Details