35 points at Poole

REPORT Wednesday 27th September 2023, 9:58pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Stellar Monarchs did not push table-topping Poole very hard on our trip to the south coast, but in the circumstances it was not a dreadful performance to go down by 55-35 with most of the team achieving something over the evening.

Team manager Gordon Campbell commented ""Poole is always a difficult place to go but the team were determined to give our fans as good a performance as possible.

"Circumstances dictated that we were racing without a number 1 which added significantly to the difficulty of the task.

"Paco and Josh led the charge admirably but Poole were always comfortable. Paco did particularly well considering he had a heavy crash on Monday but completed 7 rides without question.

"There is still spirit in the team and they have a huge desire to finish the season on a high on Friday."

Our prospective guest at no. 1 had pulled out the day before and rider replacement only yielded three, but with Josh Pickering and Paco Castagna winning five heats between them and others showing flashes of ability, it was a reasonably entertaining evening.

We were 14-4 down after three heats so there was no upset on the cards, but Josh added a heat 4 victory over Steve Worrall to his heat 1 second place. We did benefit from a couple of Pirate non-finishers in heats 6 and 7 but there was a fine pass by Lasse Fredriksen over Joe Thompson to enjoy in heat 8.

Heat 9 was our first heat advantage and Josh's second race win, already clear of Ben Cook when the home man pulled out after a lap.

Great stuff from Paco in heat 10, passing and re-passing with Newman and taking the win ahead of Richard Lawson who was eventually second. With Josh not wanting to take seven rides (though he would have done if scores were closer), we rewarded Paco with a tac sub ride in heat 12 and we managed to share that.

Lasse got the toughest r/r ride in heat 13, a comfortable enough home 5-1, before we finished with a flourish. Heat 14 was a great battle between Zach Cook and Paco Castagna, Paco using his inside line ability to stay in front, while Bastian who was not off the pace all night picked up a good third from the back.

Josh swept ahead in the final race, only to suffer a stoppage because the tape supporting bollard was left on the track. He repeated the feat in the rerun thankfully so didn't miss out.

Full Result Details