Sheffield's Howarth and Wright Retain The Title

NEWS Friday 20th July 2018, 9:09pm

by Graham Muncie and Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

After an exciting and remarkably speedy Pairs contest at Somerset on the eve of the British GP, Sheffield Tigers (Kyle Howarth and Charles Wright) pipped the Workington Comets to win the competition. The Tigers thus retained the title they won on their own track last year. The Staggs Bar Monarchs narrowly failed to make the semis.

Our pair made a strong bid and totalled a very acceptable 20 from our four heats, both Ricky and Erik winning races. We won three of our four heats on points but the Peterborough and Lakeside pairs were just that shade more consistent and proved to be the qualifiers, both just one point ahead of us, on 21! Ricky scored 12 and Erik 8.

Monarchs' star Ricky Wells was philosophical about coming so close. "I think we had a tough group and both rode really well. I thought we would have qualified but missed out by a point, unfortunate. We both rode hard and there's nothing else we could have done, left nothing on the table.

"Sometimes this is a track I struggle at but I felt pretty quick tonight. I thought the track was Ok, pretty raceable but early on the inside was the best line. I've never really done well in these meetings but tonight I tried a different engine and it worked for me. Something to build on."

Graham Muncie from trackside covered our heats like this:

Heat 3: Palm Toft and Wells side by side first lap then Palm Toft with a clever cutback on bend 1 /2 lap two takes the lead. Get to the front and stay inside is the way so far as it is raining heavily. Monarchs 3 Peterborough 6.

Heat 7: Erik jumps, all four back. Rerun Lawson gates with Erik 2nd Morris 3rd Ricky 4th. Wells spends 2 laps trying to get round Morris to no avail, cuts back and gets past. Erik then clamps Morris stopping him on the inside run allowing Wells into second. Monarchs 5 Lakeside 4.

Heat 11: Tight first lap, Ricky from gate 4 round the field and Monarchs look on a comfy 7-2 but Erik not fast enough on the white line and Auty gets round him. Monarchs 6 Scunthorpe 3.

Heat 15: Riss, Summers, Wells, Doolan close throughout but pretty much from the gate. Rain stopped 5 or 6 heats ago and it's a dust bowl already, no breaks or intervals, 15 heats in an hour. Monarchs 6 Berwick 3.

In Group B the qualifiers were Sheffield 22 and Workington 20, the Comets fairly fortunate to get the nod over Redcar.

In the semis Workington (v Peterborough) and Sheffield (v Lakeside) both scored 7-2 victories, while in the final with Ty Proctor won the heat but Sheffield held out Klindt to secure the title.