The Staggs Bar Monarchs scraped home in an exciting finish against Newcastle but it was at Reserve that the home team struggled the most, writes Mike Hunter.
Going in to the last heat, the sides were level at 42-42 but Erik Riss work the head with Ricky Wells third for a match-winning and 4-2 after Stuart Robson had been excluded.
Monarchs were briefly six points ahead in mid-match but for much of the night it was very close, and absolutely level after heats four, five, 12 and 14. The final four heats finished 1-5, 5-1, 1-5, 4-2.
Monarchs’ top two of Erik Riss and Ricky Wells gained the positive results in Heats 13 and 15 but they admitted it wasn’t easy.
Captain Erik said “The track was easy to ride but that made the job of myself, Ricky and Mark harder.”
In fact Erik did miss the start in both runnings of the vital Heat 15 but superb first corners followed by powerful drives up the straight took him to the front both times.
At the first time of asking Stuart Robson came off and was excluded and, with Kus at the rear, this could well have meant that he should start 15 metres back in the rerun.
However, this new rule wasn’t invoked so Riss had to once again pull off a surging overtake on the first lap to ensure victory.
Riss led the way with 14 and Ricky Wells was also in double figures.
His only dropped point came in Heat 11 when he broke the tapes, coming off 15 metres in the re-run and pipping Lindgren for second on the line.
Both Joel Andersson (two wins) and Josh Pickering (one win) scored sevem and both can be happy with these returns.
Mark Riss fell in heat 14 while coming past Ashley Morris and finished on just five points, after winning his opening ride.
Coty Garcia failed to score on a machine that looked very slow and Max Ruml is still well short of his early season form. The American appears to be short of confidence.
For Newcastle, Stuart Robson and Matej Kus won two heats each but perhaps the most notable performance came from Matthew Wethers.
He used all his vast knowledge of the track where he rode for ten seasons and made picking up points against the Monarchs’ tail look easy.
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