Good win to kick start the Championship

REPORT Saturday 8th April 2017, 1:29am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Ricky Wells scored a paid maximum on his team debut as the Parsons Peebles Monarchs made a sound start to their Championship campaign with a 54-36 victory over Scunthorpe Scorpions.

He may have just missed out had Josh Auty not come spectacularly to grief late in heat 13, allowing Ricky to join Sam Masters up front for a 5-1, but he deserved that small slice of luck after a great performance which saw him come from the back on the first lap of heat 4, and then even more spectacularly in heat 11 when he superbly passed Auty and Wilkinson who had beaten him from the start.

This performance of cool excellence earned Ricky the new Arnold Clark Fiat / Kia Seafield Monarch of the Match.

Alex Harkess said "It was a solid enough start with just a couple of the side needing to pick things up. Ricky Wells was right into the groove, and Josh Pickering is certainly going to be a crowd-pleaser. And Mark Riss is a trump card at reserve no doubt about that."

Ricky was certainly not the only success because Josh Pickering's crowd-pleasing celebrations were extremely well earned with paid 7 from his first three rides, including a paid win behind captain Sam in heat 6 and an excellent tapes-to-flag success in heat 8. It is astonishing how quickly this boy has adapted to our track and it looks as though his motorcycling ability is ideally suited to our circuit.

Sam himself was completely dominant in his first four rides, until he picked up a third place in the final heat with Lewis Kerr spitting our top two. The captain has expressed some disquiet over the new tyres and he is certainly not alone in that.

The Riss boys were happy too, Mark taking the bigger score with a powerful display from reserve which included three wins. Erik won his first two but then came off on the second bend of heat 9, trying to go round Josh Auty who had gone a long way out on the corner to block Erik's run.

It looked like the brothers were on a 5-1 in heat 12 but Lewis Kerr produced one of the rides of the night to pass Erik round the outside.

Mitchell Davey did very well to take a paid win in heat 2 in which Fritz Wallner fell and suffered a wrist injury, but in his next two Mitchell struggled. The same was true for Max Clegg who hasn't yet found his best form, and who was out for a run in the second half.

Kerr was the best of the Scorpions, finishing strongly, though their two race winners were Michael Palm Toft (heat 14) and Josh Auty (heat 9 after Erik's crash).

As far as we know Auty is OK after his very awkward heat 13 tumble when he lost control and flew through the air onto the track.

Full Result Details