Sam leads heat 1 Image Credit: Ron MacNeill

Meeting Abandoned After Crashes

REPORT Sunday 28th August 2016, 9:53pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Tonight's meeting at Newcastle was abandoned after ten heats with the score standing at 33-27 to the Diamonds. The delays were due to crashes which ruled both Lewis Rose and Dan Bewley out of the match.

Dan's pileup came in heat 11 after he had brilliantly ridden into double figures again, helping us to gain a point we didn't expect in the circumstances.

We don't like riding anywhere with an under strength team, least of all at Newcastle who are going so well, but circumstances dictated that we were riding without Erik Riss and Ryan Fisher tonight.

Sam Masters won the opening heat comfortably, then after a false start in heat two (Lewis Rose warned), Dan Bewley led all the way in the rerun. Max Clegg was briefly in second till passed by Rose, who later fell heavily entering the third corner, leaving us with an awarded 5-1.

Sam had hit a tricky spot on that third corner and it looked as though Lewis had found it as well. Unfortunately he needed a Hospital trip and that meant a lengthy delay while another ambulance arrived.

Racing resumed at 8:05 with the Diamonds comfortably levelling the scores, before we saw a brilliant heat four battle between Dan Bewley and Steve Worrall. Dan got ahead early on and thought passed at one point, swept back ahead by riding a brave wide fourth corner. From then on he repulsed Worrall's continuous challenge, to take one of his best race wins yet.

Sam had to work hard to split the strong Kus / Lindgren pair in heat 5, and Kevin managed to do likewise in heat 6 ahead of Palovaara but behind Robert Lambert.

Heat 7 brought Bewley and Worrall into opposition again, and Dan did almost take the lead round the outside of the second corner, only to almost collect the fence. He had to settle for second which he repeated behind Palovaara in heat 8 which we shared with Max Clegg taking third.

We managed a surprise 4-2 in heat 9, a very good win for Kevin who burst past Kus down the back straight. Max Clegg did likewise to Lindgren late in the race for a very good point.

Heat 10 was a predictable 1-5 as we fielded Mark Riss with Hopwood, which put us six down. 

Unfortunately the fun stopped at heat 11 as Dan made another remarkable attempt to ride the outside of bend two, but he lifted and came down with his bike also wiping out Sam. Sam rose, Dan didn't. After lengthy treatment he did make his way into the ambulance.

Another lengthy delay took us to the three hour mark and probably no-one was too unhappy that the match was then abandoned with the result standing.