No Glory In Pairs

NEWS Sunday 8th October 2017, 6:34pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Parsons Peebles Monarchs were eliminated at the group stage finishing 3rd of 5 and agonizingly 1 point short of a potential semi final place at the SGB Pairs Championship on Sunday afternoon.

The Armadale men made a dream start as their duo of Sam Masters and Ricky Wells rocketed from the start in heat 2 to take a maximum 7-2 against the Newcastle Diamonds.

In a long and drawn out afternoon littered with pauses and track grading it was close to an hour before the Monarchs took to track again in heat 8 against the hosts Sheffield. Masters again made a fantastic gate to take the lead but the home men slotted in behind the Aussie and despite Wells best efforts he could not make the inside line stick with Howarth on the faster outside.

It was curtains for any semi final hopes after heat 14 when the eventual runners up Redcar gained a maximum advantage meaning we were as good as out this being confirmed when Sheffield took 4 points from their tussle against Berwick 2 heats later.

The Monarchs did at least finish with a bang recording maximum points against the ineffective Berwick pairing whose only defeat of an opponent all day came when Sheffield’s Kyle Howarth had an engine failure while on a comfortable maximum with his partner in the heat that was to confirm the Monarchs demise.

The action did at least pick up in the knockout stages with both of the teams that finished ahead of the Monarchs making the final where it looked like Redcar were on to take the spoils being on a 7-2 for the majority of the race however Howarth was to get the better of Charles Wright and then slow him allowing Lasse Bjerre to get past also.

The meeting ending in a sour note as Wright then clattered into Howarth and was excluded. As the dust settled this meant that the home men Sheffield were the victors as for the 4th time in the last 5 shared events at this level this was the case.