Rain The Winner At Ashfield

REPORT Friday 12th April 2024, 9:11pm

by Graham Muncie

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Stellar Monarchs started slowly but were waking up into the meeting before the rain intervened in an eventful night at Ashfield.

The drama started prior to tapes-up with no sign of Chris Harris stuck in traffic. Both sides agreed to a 15 minute delay.

At 19.45 the two minutes went on Harris' van roaring into the stadium, the former Grand Prix winner jumped out ready to go and promptly passed Lasse Fredriksen to join James Pearson for a Tigers 5-1.

Heat two saw further incident, first up Sam Hagon was a little keen, touching the tapes. The re-run saw the Monarchs make the gate only for Ace Pijper to dive between them off the second bend.

There wasn't room for all three and Connor Coles was the man on the outside coming down, referee Jim McGregor taking an age before disqualifying Coles much to the disdain of all of a Monarchs persuasion Coles especially clearly not impressed.

Heat three and captain Paco Castagna stopped the bleeding with a fantastic outside swoop, the Italian saying after, 'we started poorly and then it was a weird decision by the referee, I won't say to much but no rider wants to crash on their own on the straight.'

'I had a chat to the boys straight away and fired them up and it was good.

'Fair play to Glasgow for putting on a fantastic track, it was fantastic for racing before the rain came.

'I hope we can come back and start as we finished, I felt good on the bike so I'll take that into the next matches.'

Always one to look for positives Castagna was also quick to quip 'I'm counting that as my first full maximum in British Speedway'

While there was no immediate sign of a lift as Steve Worrall and Pijper took a heat four 4-2 heat five would be the highlight of the night for the Monarchs.

Leon Flint looked to have gated best but the Monarchs went either side of him out of the second bend. Flint was quickly back into second going round Fredriksen off bend four. Our Norwegian would not be denied though taking on the chase before blasting round Flint to take second behind Josh Pickering on the line.

Heat six saw a tapes to flag win for Sedgemen but with the rain coming down the decision was made to call it a day.

This decision more than justified as within ten minutes of the call off the water was bouncing off the ground and the track and surrounding area were awash.

So, it'll need to be done all over again, next up though a trip to Berwick on Saturday night.

Glasgows Tigers 21 : Harris 4+1, Pearson 4+1, Flint 2, Starke 2, Worrall 3, Hagon 3 Pijper 3+1

Stellar Monarchs 15 : Pickering 4, Fredriksen 2+1, Thomson 0, Castagna 3, Sedgmen 5, James 1, Coles 0

Full Result Details