Monarchs Eliminated Early As Panthers Lift The Fours

NEWS Sunday 6th August 2017, 6:39pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Parsons Peebles Monarchs were eliminated at the semi final stage as hosts Peterborough lifted the SGB Championship trophy at the East of England Showground on Sunday afternoon.

The Monarchs had travelled more in hope than expectation after the injury to Sam Masters which has now been confirmed as a broken collarbone leaving us slightly under power.

We made the worst possible start with Max Clegg unable to trouble the scorers in heat 1 which was won from tapes to flag by an impressive looking Thomas Jorgensen.

We picked up our first points in heat 2 with Erik picking up a 2nd place behind Chris Harris, Harris setting a new Championship level track record in the process.

With only 8 qualifying heats we were facing an uphill battle when Ricky went through the tapes in heat 4 (no Monarchs rider was in heat 3 due to the 5 team format), Josh came in and as always gave it his all but came off worse for his battle with Ulrich Ostergaard and Ty Proctor.

Heat 5 saw us record another blank as Theo retired at the back and at the half way point we were only on 2 points and our hopes were as good as over.

The Monarchs faithful did at least have something to cheer when Erik took an impressive win in heat 7 and we did at show up better in the second half of races with Theo, Josh and Ricky all finishing in the points.

The damage had been done though and we had to watch on as Josh Grajczonek and Paul Starke did what was required to see their teams through to the final.

In the second semi Sheffield and Peterborough were joined by Ipswich and Redcar who progressed at the expense of Newcastle, Berwick and Glasgow.

Onto the final with the hosts despite the controversial absence of Jack Holder proving too powerful as they ran out comfortable winners with Chris Harris unbeaten throughout the entire day and Ulrich Ostergaard unbeaten in the final also. The podium being completed by Redcar and Sheffield.

So another home winner in a shared event but in this instance deserved on what was an enjoyable day of racing at Alwalton we will see the victors at Armadale this Friday.

Full Result Details