OUTSTANDING DRAW AT REDCAR

NEWS Thursday 18th July 2013, 10:09pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Scotwaste Monarchs pulled off one of their best results of the season tonight, coming back from 8 points down with three races remaining to gain a 45-45 draw - and goIng top of the league on points difference!

There's a long way to go of course but one of the important things about this result is that it comes against one of the other leading teams, as well as of course the team who earlier beat us at Armadale!

As usual everyone contributed important points, but the real heavy work came in heats 13 and 15 from the dynamite duo of Cook and Vissing.

Claus made the start off gate three each time, while miracle man Craig had to fight from the back on a track on which there wasn't much passing.

In heat 13 he caught Ostergaard, slotting between him and Vissing before sweeping ahead. In heat 15 it was even tougher against in-form reserve Carl Wilkinson, but Cook refused to be denied and roared past at the start of the final lap.

This completed a magnificent paid maximum for Cook, a consolation for the short-sighted decision by Team GB not to take him to Prague. If only they knew how good he is!

Of course in between these two big late heats, Jozsef and Max had a job to do too. They managed to push Wilkinson to the back and share heat 14. These two struggled with their gating all night and unless you were Craig Cook, that was the most important thing.

We had started with a 5-1, then lost two of the same, and we trailed from that point. Thankfully Theo got his gating boots on for a heat 10 win after two last places, and he split the Bears in heat 12, but with an 8-point deficit it looked as if a point might be the limit of our ambitions.

But as we know, anything is possible with this team.

Full Result Details