Team effort brings a worthy point.

NEWS Sunday 17th July 2022, 0:00am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

An excellent performance by the What the Fork Monarchs brought them a point at what, over the season, has been the hardest Championship track to visit. It was an all-round team performance but we have to give a special doffed cap to our guest Richard Lawson for a really outstanding display.

Team manager John Campbell said "I think Richard Lawson was a very adequate replacement for Sam! We definitely deserved our point, all of our riders did their bit."

The team stuck to their task and never let the Lions get too far ahead, in spite of the fact that Lawson suffered bad luck in the opening race. He had fought off an early challenge by Nick Morris but his machine stopped at the end of lap three with the race in the bag.

We grabbed a couple of seconds then shared heat 4 featuring a trademark chase by Josh Pickering on home captain Kyle Howarth.

If we were concerned about any damage Lawson might have done to his machinery our fears were eased as he comfortably beat Richie Worrall in heat 5. This was our first race advantage as Lasse got the better of Max Clegg in a good battle for the point.

We were 8 down going in to heat 8 which proved to be eventful. First, James Sarjeant had a disagreement with the start marshal over Joe Thomson's position on grid one, with his handlebar apparently over the dividing line. The Marshall said it was ok - more of that later. Sarj was sufficiently geed up to make a quick start to lead the rerun, only for Connor Mountain to fall. In the rerun, predictably, Joe made the gate and won., while James Sarjeant fell and left the track.

Cue Richard Lawson in as tac sub alongside Josh in heat 9 against Worrall - and we got a 5-1! Not in the predictable way either, it was Josh who made the gate and Richard who superbly passed the home heat leader.

So now we were only five down and starting to think of a point at least. We swapped 4-2s over the next couple of heats, taking an advantage in heat 11 when Lawson became the first to beat Kyle Howarth, and Lasse took another good point.

We shared heat 12 with a very good point for Jacob Hook against Joe Thompson. We had high hopes of heat 13 obviously and were sharing it at one point, but this time Lawson was caught by Howarth and pushed to the back. This was the second race in which one of our riders - Lawson - felt he had cause to complain about the positioning of the rider in gate 1 - Morris - but again the start marshal ruled that all was well. It looked questionable.

No matter what Paco Castagna has done in his first three rides, he's always a danger in heat 14, and sure enough he won it. That left us 7 down going into the last heat leaving a clear target - 4-2 or better for a point.

And that man Lawson stepped up again, racing from the tapes while Josh burst from the back past Howarth. We didn't need to improve on that but Josh of course pushed hard on Morris and nearly took him too.

So we became the second team (after Poole) to take a point from Beaumont Leys this season, a very good effort.

Full Result Details