Glasgow Tigers v Edinburgh Monarchs

REPORT Sunday 27th April 2008, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Needing to avoid a huge defeat to qualify, we went to town at Glasgow and whacked in an amazing 58 points against a very disappointing Tigers? outfit.

We were very good and they were very bad, and even allowing for the unfortunate loss of Trent Leverington after a heat one crash, Tigers will surely be looking to make team changes shortly. Certainly Stewart Dickson?s post-match comments on the mike suggest that.

Their performance though wasn?t our problem, and the Monarchs? riders simply concentrated on piling up every point they could. Seven 5-1 heat wins (all the races Parker wasn?t in apart from heats 1 and 13), 10 race wins (all the ones Parker wasn?t in) ? where do you begin?

No-one will have fonder memories of the occasion than Aaron Summers who scored a paid maximum, following three easy wins with an amazing ride in heat 14 when he touched the tapes and had to go off 15 metres. That got the biggest cheer of the day from the Monarchs? contingent.

Heat 1 was an unfortunate start as Ryan and Trent Leverington both headed for the outside of the second turn. Ryan was in front, Trent didn?t back off, and he hit the fence.

Derek Sneddon made the gate in the rerun though and stormed home in a time just 0.6 outside the track record!

Aaron and Andrew took a comfortable 5 in heat 2, Andrew passing Grajczonek on lap one, and William and Thomas shared heat 3 behind Parker.

Aaron was away again in heat 4 and though Brady briefly held second, Matthew swept past him with ease.

The pattern continued. Parker won heat 5 but Sneddon and Fisher shared it.

We then saw the not-unfamiliar sight of Parker taking a TS ride in heat 6. He was replacing Leverington who unfortunately was out of the meeting.

Matthew though was standing no nonsense and soon stormed ahead of Ksiezak. Andrew held up Parker and even re-passed him at one point, but eventually he fell as he almost ran into the back wheel of the desperately unimpressive Ksiezak.

So we were now 6 ahead, but with two heats without Parker coming up, we whacked in another 2 5-1?s. This included a failed TR by Ksiezak in heat 8.

Parker won heat 9, then we took another two 5-1?s from the next two heats he wasn?t in! Get the picture?

Ross Brady had his worst ride yet in heat 11 but with Grajczonek having to work so hard to replace Leverington, Brady had to be left in.

Heat 12 was actually an advantage to Glasgow through Parker and Grajczonek, and they shared heat 13 with Derek Sneddon getting in a fankle at the back.

Then we had the dramatic completion of Summers? paid max, riding between Dicken and Grajczonek at the end of lap three, while up ahead of him Thomas Jonasson took his score to paid 11 from 4. We just didn?t have a failure.

Parker was in the last heat so that was a 3-3, and that was that ? 34-58.