Erik crashes out as we go down again

REPORT Sunday 17th June 2018, 8:33pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

It was another defeat for the Staggs Bar Monarchs down at Newcastle tonight, after suffering the hefty blow of losing captain Erik Riss in his first ride in heat 4, but an eventual scoreline of 53-37 was not a bad performance considering they were 20 points down at heat 8.

John Campbell said "It was a battling performance against the odds after losing Erik. Ricky Wells was simply magnificent, only because he was slightly baulked in his first ride did he miss his maximum. Josh Pickering gave an exciting performance and by the end Joel Andersson was going quite well too."

When you are riding as something of a two-man team, and one of these two is ruled out, it is obviously going to be difficult. However there were definitely some positive signs with Max Ruml winning heat 2 and a fightback from heat 9 led by some brilliant riding from Ricky Wells, who won his last 5 heats, and typically exciting stuff from Josh Pickering who does seem to thrive on this track.

Ricky won heat 9 as a tac sub with Joel Andersson (Injury Rider replacement for Erik) in third. Then Josh Pickering pulled off a great pass on Robson to win heat 10 from the Diamonds' formidable opening pair, and Ricky and Joel went one better to take a 5-1 from heat 11.

Pickering was at it again in heat 12, passing Kus twice during the race for his second victory. Ricky wells made it five heat winners in a row by taking heat 13, and we finished with a flourish as Wells and Pickering both took points from the back in the final heat.

We had six of the last seven race winners, a great effort, but obviously a dozen last places is far too many.

Full Result Details