Wolbert was in fine form Image Credit: Jack Cupido

TRACK STAFF SAVE THE DAY

NEWS Friday 24th July 2015, 11:59pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

On a day which was apparently fine for everyone else in Scotland, Armadale was the exception, suffering heavy showers during the afternoon. This meant our hard-pressed track staff working furiously for a matter of hours to produce a smooth and rideable surface on which the Border Roofing Monarchs beat Rye House by 59-34, extending their lead at the top of the table.

Home reserve Rob Branford who had his first Armadale meeting for six weeks and scored paid 7 said “I take my hat off to the track staff tonight! What an awesome job.”

The meeting was held up by 25 minutes as the work continued, but in the end it was worthwhile. There were points throughout the team who gradually built up a lead, and there was some decent opposition from the impressive Nikolai B Jakobsen, from Edward Kennett intermittently and from Luke Bowen also.

There were no maximum men amongst the Monarchs but each of Kevin Wolbert, Justin Sedgmen, Steve Worrall and Craig Cook was beaten only once.

The best race was probably the last one in which Wolbert and Jakobsen battled for second spot behind Sedgmen, with our man eventually repassing the Rockets’ Dane for a closing 5-1.

The early stages of several races provided a lot of interesting moves, not least Sedgmen’s wide sweep to go ahead in heat 8, or Max Clegg’s excellent cutback in heat 7 to pass the Rockets’ Swedes Mellgren and Aspegren.

We saw the best of Kennett, surely one of the most talented small track riders around, as he took his TR in heat 5. Although Kevin Wolbert had led down the back straight, the visiting number one swept imperiously to the front at the next corner.

However Kennett had been pegged back in heat 1, and later lost out to Craig Cook in heat 11. Kennett and Jakobsen did get ahead in heat 13 only for the heat to be stopped; Cook tried to use the wide outside line but found it too slippery out there and disappeared under the fence.

Unfortunately for the two visitors Steve Worrall gated and hung on to win the rerun.

Finishing with two 5-1s, Monarchs extended their victory margin to 25 points, but it didn’t feel as one-sided as some of the matches this season.

The team now head off on the massive journey to Plymouth for another league match tomorrow.