Magnificent second place at the Fours

REPORT Sunday 1st July 2018, 7:40pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Once again the Staggs Bar Monarchs proved that they can never be written off with a brilliant display at Redcar in the Championship Fours, taking second place in the semis with 17 points from 8 outings and again second place in the final with 19 from 12 outings in the final. The winners, retaining their trophy, were Peterborough on 22.

We have won the competition four times but surely we can never have done any better than we did today, considering that we have been regarded as a top-heavy team and we were racing without our top average rider!

A very proud John Campbell said "It was absolutely astounding really. Really exceptional, and probably everybody had an exceptional race. Josh, as ever, the most exciting rider on view in the whole meeting. Erik Magnificent. You can see now some real potential in some of our riders. Some good racing.

"We were dusty from heat 6 onwards but there's nothing you can do about it in 25 degree heat."

Campbell is usually very optimistic about what his team might achieve but even he didn't see this display coming. He admitted "I parked my car outside the stadium expecting to have to make a quick getaway after heat 22. And here I am at the end of the meeting, almost the only person left here!"

The format proved successful and though it was a long day, slick presentation kept things moving. We took 8 points from our first three rides with Mark and Erik both winning. Max took a third ahead of Jake Allen and then Erik won again, passing Rory Schlein on the last lap of heat 13.

So we were very well placed out in front, vying with Peterborough. Josh Pickering came in for one ride before the end of the semi and swept from 4th to 2nd round the boards, and in the end we finished just a single point down on the Panthers.

Glasgow had been on 4 after 5 rides, a terrible performance, but they finished with three race wins followed by a win for Harris in the run-off to make the final.

Thus it was Glasgow v Peterborough v Edinburgh v Lakeside for the Fours Championship.

In that we started with two third places so we needed the excellent victory by Joel Andersson in heat 3, which was followed by another for the superb Erik Riss.

In the end we came just short though we finished with a brilliant flourish, another exciting win for Josh in heat 11 and a third final victory, fifth of the day, for Erik in the last heat (though Harris did pack up in front).

We won't waste time worrying about what might have happened with a full team, just congratulate the guys on their great performance. From Poland Ricky Wells sent the message "Great result for the team. I hope this weekend's results can transform our season."