Speedway – frustrated Pickering eyes Redcar

The Staggs Bar Edinburgh Monarchs travel to Redcar Bears on Thursday looking to bounce back after a frustrating evening on the road as they skidded to a 53-37 defeat at Scunthorpe Scorpions.

Monarchs only earned four heat wins at the Eddie Wright Raceway and top two Ricky Wells and Erik Riss were only able to collect 13 points and one heat win between them.

There was, however, solid scoring of the rest of the septet with Josh Pickering continuing to impress with eight points.

The Australian said: “It wasn’t a bad night for me personally but it’s a frustrating one for the team.

“I’m happy enough with my performance even though I felt I should have won Heat Ten and in Heat 15 I got pushed out.

“It’s a frustrating one for the team as with no offense to Scunthorpe they weren’t exceptional but we let them off.

“It’s annoying that we are not all firing, Ricky (Wells) and Erik (Riss) have been amazing all season and we haven’t backed them up.

“On Sunday, the rest of us do OK and they (Ricky and Erik) are off it a little. That’s speedway I guess though and we will go again at Redcar on Thursday.”

Monarchs dug themselves an early hole they could not get out of with Scunthorpe receiving a return from guest riders in Rory Schlein and Aaron Summers, both former Edinburgh Monarchs riders.

The star for the Scorpions Josh Auty who raced to a six-ride paid maximum.