Scunthorpe Scorpions v Edinburgh Monarchs

Recently we seem to have acquired a habit of starting slowly and coming on strongly in matches, but we took this to extremes at Scunthorpe.

Over the first ten heats we performed poorly, and we lost Claus Vissing after two crashes – in heat 4 on the third bend while leading, and in heat 6 on the fourth bend while second. In the latter, he lifted and brought Josh Auty off as well.

After that it was announced that Claus had been withdrawn from the meeting with a shoulder injury, but with luck it won’t be too serious.

We also had Jozsef brought off by Ryan Douglas in heat 2, down the back straight, but our man got excluded.

We did win heat 1 4-2, indeed Derek only lost second on the last bend. With all these fallers, we had slumped to 12-24 after six heats even though Craig won his first two heats.

Theo took the first TR in heat 7 but only managed third, with Max up ahead pressing David Howe. We lost heat 8, Jozsef won heat 9 from Birks, but when heat 10 also went to the home team by 5-1 we seemed to be down and out at 22-39.

Craig rode brilliantly to pass David Howe on his TR ride in heat 11, with Jozsef third, and Jozsef than joined Theo for a 5-1. Game on!

Craig won heat 13, Max rose to the occasion to back Jozsef for another 5-1 in heat 14 and suddenly we were going in to the last race with the chance of a draw!

We didn’t quite make it but Craig’s fifth win of the night was enough to ensure that we took a point which had seemed so unlikely five heats earlier.

It was a warm day and the track was quite slick, needing regular spraying to keep the dust down. The gates were far more even than they have been in recent times at Scunthorpe.