A good point over 14 heats at Redcar

NEWS Sunday 22nd May 2022, 7:59pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The WTF Monarchs gained what is a pretty good point at Redcar on Sunday evening, the match being abandoned with the score at 45-39 to the home team after the track had been affected by a sharp shower during three attempted runnings of heat 15.

Team boss John Campbell said "We were pleased to get a point though we would have liked to do better. The decision to call off the last heat was the correct one; it could have been made sooner as none of the riders wanted to take risks on the difficult surface".

The three Aussie heat leaders did the bulk of the Monarchs' scoring, with both Sam Masters and Josh Pickering setting new track records on a track re-shaped this season. Josh finished as holder on 52.8 (heat 3) and Kye Thomson also beat the previous record. Josh's heat 4 ride was a from-the-back Picko special against Lewis Kerr.

Fast race wins in heats 1, 3 and 4 certainly gave us hope that our top men might dominate the match on a track with a fair bit of dirt on the outside line. In fact as the dirt built up further it became pretty difficult to ride even for our boys.

We did get an additional race win from Kyle Bickley in heat 8 after race leader Adam Roynon had fallen on the final lap, but after heat 10 we stood 10 points behind.

That gave us the chance to use Josh as a tactical sub in heat 11 and with Sam sailing off in front we were treated to another Pickering special as he sped past the Bears for a 5-1.

We shared heat 12 and took another advantage in heat 13, Sam winning and Josh chasing Charles Wright all the way to the flag, coming up just short.

Four down with two to go, the victory was settled in a thrilling heat 14 in which Jason Edwards and Paco Castagna rode neck and neck, Paco almost squeezing through on the inside several times.

Then came the drawn-out saga of heat 15, in which we needed a shared race for the point. The heat was stopped needlessly the first time as the riders entered the back straight, then it was stopped again as Wright and Pickering came down. Then it rained.

This made a difficult track with a grippy outside and slick inside, all the more dicey, and the eventual decision came as a relief.

Full Result Details