Heat 13 thrills unfold Image Credit: Ron MacNeill

Three League points on an entertaining night

REPORT Saturday 5th May 2018, 0:39am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Staggs Bar Monarchs defeated Peterborough 48-42 in tonight’s Championship encounter, which most people seem to agree was the most entertaining night’s racing for quite a while at Armadale.

Quite a bit of the credit for that, though not all of it, has to be given to Scott Nicholls who displayed all his small-track skills in a wonderful display of all-action speedway. It might have been 20 years since his last Armadale appearance but he had no difficulty using the track to his advantage.

Nicholls admitted he had an enjoyable night saying “It won’t be another twenty years till I come back! It took me a race or so just to settle myself in but it’s a technical little track and these are the tracks I like. I’m pleased with my performance and I’m pleased we managed to pull a point out of it which perhaps wasn’t expected.”

The highlight was probably heat 13 when he passed Monarchs’ high-quality duo of Ricky Wells and Erik Riss. Erik, below his own usual high standards, lost to Nicholls four times in spite of generally getting the better of him from the starts, and it was left to Mark Riss and Ricky Wells to lower the brilliant visitor’s colours.

Ricky was in great form again and should not be overshadowed by the excitement of Nicholls’ display, because our no. 1 did finish with a 2-1 advantage over Scott in their encounters.

Mark Riss rode well though he fell after leading Nicholls in one heat, coming down as Nicholls swept through. Perhaps the happiest man in the home camp though should be Joel Andersson, the Swede having easily his most convincing evening with paid 7 points, including a heat 8 win set up by a glorious first corner outside sweep.

Joel said “I feel I had a lot better starts to start with. I felt more confident on the bike. I’m really happy we managed to win today.”

Josh Pickering had his usual night of terrible gating and exciting attempts to make amends from the back, the highlight being heat 2 when he came from last to join Matt Williamson for an important 5-1 which set us on the road to victory.

Matt though didn’t capitalise on that and did little thereafter, while it was another disappointing night for Max Ruml who has at the moment lost his early season sparkle.

As well as Nicholls, Nike Lunna had an excellent night for Peterborough scoring 11, and Michael Palm Toft might have done better but seemed to have machine troubles early on. Simon Lambert finished with two much better rides than he normally manages at Armadale. Certainly no-one would begrudge the Panthers a point because they played their part in the entertainment on show.