Title Partner
There must be something about Saturday speedway that decrees it must be run on sopping wet tracks.
That's what we encountered at Stoke last week, and sure enough we arrived at Berwick to see surface water lying on heavy dirt.
As a result racing was poor for much of the night, with a couple of exceptions. There were some curious results because the rider from gate 4 often made the start, but overall Berwick carried more strength than us and deserved to win.
Monarchs had five different race winners which is impressive on an away track, though it wasn't a good match for Henrik. He looked pretty uncomfortable all night.
Monarchs had Richie Dennis of Scunthorpe standing in for Sean Stoddart, and the highly rated youngster had one good second place.
Derek Sneddon was our first race winner in heat 2, and he did it again in heat 4 with Rusty backing up in the latter race.
Rusty unfortunately lost a certain win in heat 6 when he suddenly tumbled on the fourth corner of lap 3, and although he almost kept going he finished up on the football pitch.
William Lawson took advantage of his gate 4 outing to win heat 7, and Theo won heat 8 (also off gate 4). At that point we had narrowed the gap to 4 at 22-26.
However the Smethills / Makovsky pair was proving dominant, and they took their third 5-1 in heat 9. Matthew was on gate 4 in heat 10, and yes - he won from there, after a messy first corner which saw Meldrum fall and Lawson impeded. It should have been stopped but we did come out of it with a 4-2.
The power of gate 4 sent Danny Warwick to the front in heat 11, and this resulted in a good race as Pijper and Bergstrom queued up behind. Bergstrom passed both the rider in front of him before Pijper slipped past Warwick.
What did we say about gate 4? In heat 12 it was Branney's turn to race ahead from the favoured start, and he stayed there with Smethills backing.
This gave us a TR chance in heat 13, quite handy as Rusty was on?. gate 4! He duly won, and with Henrik hanging on to third this time we scored a 7-2.
At that point we departed from gate 4 winners as William and Derek did very well to head Makovsky. This was a good race with Berwick's Czech getting round Derek but not managing to catch William.
Heat 15 was an easy home 5-1 (Berwick had gate 4) leaving us 9 adrift at the end.
It's fair to say that Berwick has not been one of our most productive hunting grounds just as Armadale has not been one of Berwick's. This is largely down to the totally different size and nature of the two tracks. On Saturday we have another opportunity to raid the Bandits den in the match postponed a few weeks ago when the rain curtailed proceedings after heat 2.
Berwick have looked a bit more vulnerable at home this season than last. Already they have lost to Newcastle (twice) and Glasgow round their own track but have made what many thought a surprising team change when they dropped Adrian Rymel, for so long their top man, and signed the little known (in Britain at least) Stanislaw Burza.
It may take Burza a little time to adapt to British tracks but already he has had a number of race wins in the two meetings he has ridden and equalled Henrik Moller's track record round Redcar beating Gary Havelock in the process. Nonetheless it is difficult to imagine that he will be a more potent force round Berwick than an on-song Adrian Rymel was. Time will tell.
If Burza blows hot and cold against the Monarchs the Berwick number 1 pairing of Burza and David Meldrum may not be as strong as some we have faced in the past. The consistent Michal Makovsky and Lee Smethills form a potentially match-winning partnership at numbers 3 and 4. Indeed Lee Smethills top-scored for Berwick at Redcar and will be a real danger man.
Andreas Bergstrom after a very strong start has not been so consistent. He had a poor return in midweek at Redcar but that can be put down largely to machine problems. The Berwick third pairing in which he partners one of the reserves is another which is not as strong as last year.
Gone is the powerhouse reserve pairing at one time last season of Carl Wilkinson and Scott Smith. In their place are Craig Branney and Daniel Warwick. Neither have the scoring power Berwick have experienced in the past although both have shown flashes of what they are capable of round Shielfield Park.
So what are our chances? The clever money will be on a Berwick win and it is hard to argue against that. Theo and Rusty we know can ride the big circuit well but the rest of the team will need to provide strong back-up if we are to contest the points. Fast gating is one of the keys to success at Berwick although there seems to be more passing these days than in the past.
Overall the signs point to a Berwick win but, as is often the case with these matches, it is important not to let the match slip away to the extent that we did at Newport last week because the section may well be decided by bonus points and it is imperative that we at least take that over our two matches with the Bandits.
Sunday 30th April 2006, 2:42pm
The Scotwaste Monarchs lost by 9 on a very heavy Berwick track.
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Bathgate Road
Armadale
EH48 2PD
