Something new at the Fours

PREVIEW Sunday 1st July 2018, 8:06am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Supporters heading to Redcar this afternoon for the 2018 Championship Fours will be seeing something unusual with 11 teams lining up to chase the Trophy.

It's a meeting we have won four times, and each time a memorable occasion. We will be trying to win without our top scorer Ricky Wells who is one of a number of riders heading for Poland instead. It goes without saying we'd rather have Ricky with us but it would be naïve not to recognise the difficult choices these riders face with Polish clubs and the pressure they can put on.

This is more a fans' event than a riders' one as more than half the field will only have two races at Redcar. Some sides have not found it easy to put a Four together and our former reserve Coty Garcia steps in to guest for Scunthorpe.

Clearly to qualify we would need exceptional performances from our foursome of Erik, Mark, Joel and Max plus reserve Josh, who we must be looking to deploy.

There will be 34 heats, semis of 12 and 10 races followed by a final of 12. Details have been rather kept under wraps but it's potentially a good racetrack so as long as they can keep the meeting rolling along, it should be a good afternoon for the fans. And some of the riders will enjoy it, especially the winners.