Plenty of interest in Rockets' visit

PREVIEW Thursday 4th August 2016, 7:11pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

You’ll be able to spot any Rye House fans at Armadale this week as they will now be wearing the new orange and black colours of the BMR Rockets.

That’s unless they are traditionalists and are still wearing the blue and yellow, impersonating Monarchs’ fans.

We habitually say that the tracks at Armadale and Rye House are similar so the matches should be close, but in recent times that hasn’t really been the case when Len Silver’s team has visited. The bosses now are Warren Scott and Steve Jenson (plus team manager Peter Schroek) so we will see if they can do any better.

They have generally scored in the high thirties but the last really good performance by the Rockets was a 49-43 defeat in 2010, in which Linus Sundstrom and Jordan Frampton scored a 5-1 in the last race to grab a point (which then meant we lost one).

The current Rockets team would need to pick up some away points if they were to move up the table. They do have a side most of whom have done well at Armadale in the past.

Edward Kennett has been one of the leading small track specialists in the UK for many years, and we have seen him ride brilliantly on a number of occasions, beating all of the top home men. He is currently sporting a Green Sheet average of over 10 and is doing well for his Elite team Lakeside, winning the opening heat at Belle Vue the other night. Thankfully Rye House have precedence for this fixture so we will be seeing Eddie.

It’s actually Stuart Robson who has the best Armadale record of the Rockets, averageing over 8 from his 14 visits. He’s 39 now but that doesn’t mean he takes it easy, he’s still a fighter.

Their middle pairing of Cameron Heeps and Leigh Lanham is the unpredictable part of the team, but both of these riders have scored double figures at Armadale in their time. Aussie Heeps is well remembered for his brilliant display in the Knockout Cup Final of 2014 for Ipswich.

A piece of trivia regarding the veteran Lanham is that his dad Mike, formerly an Ipswich Witch, reaches the age of 65 shortly.

Completing the top five, Kasper Lykke is a former Glasgow rider and one of the great triers of the Premier League, usually trying to make up for slow gating. He is always worth watching.

At no. 6 we will be meeting up again with our old friend Robert Branford. Rob was a great contributor last year in our league winning campaign, and should have guested for us against Glasgow last month, had the weather not intervened. He will be cracking jokes again tomorrow and no doubt looking forward to showing us what he can do.

Ben Morley is their no. 7, averageing over 4 and one of the most experienced of the riders permitted to ride in that position.

So it is a side which could click if they are all on form. On the other hand the Border Roofing Monarchs should feel confident, as long as they can shake off the disappointing form shown at Glasgow.

We have the full team back, with captain Sam Masters fresh from his World Cup heroics. He really is making a substantial mark in the Speedway world at the moment with his performances for all his teams. We just have to hope that he is getting enough sleep.

Mark Riss didn’t enjoy his last home meeting but he has ridden well in Germany since then and should find the track more to his liking tomorrow than it was two weeks ago.

Erik Riss also missed last week due to that German match but he has been going well everywhere and was in double figures last time at Armadale.

Ryan Fisher stayed in the World Cup till Friday and had to shoulder much of the responsibility since Greg Hancock was taking the night off. He showed all his usual spirit and we wil be seeing the same tomorrow.

Kevin Wolbert did a great job as captain last week and saw the match out in style with three wins. That heat 13 victory was one of the races of the season.

But now to the real heroes! Who would have believed that we would have got double figures from both Max Clegg and Dan Bewley last week, especially when both made slow starts in heat 2! They started zooming out of the starts after that and that will hopefully be a bit of a turning point for both.

So while we would expect a home win tomorrow, it can’t be taken for granted and we hope for some entertaining speedway whatever happens.

Full Result Details