Berwick Bandits v Edinburgh Monarchs

This match was raced in the shadow of the serious accident suffered by Ricky Ashworth the previous night, but the riders of both teams put it to the back of their minds and raced with commitment.

Not that they did much overtaking; two changes of position for the odd point in the last two heats were all that we saw in that respect. However it was always interesting enough to see who was going to come out on top.

Craig won heat 1 in a fast time and Max gave Kozza Smith a hard enough time for third to suggest that he might have a good evening.

Heat 2 was a disappointing 2-4 against a home pair who achieved little over the evening, but we got a break in heat 3 when Matthew Wethers lost a chain while leading. Jozsef Tabaka was so close behind that it was pretty miraculous that he didn’t run into him.

That gave us a 2-point lead which we extended in heat 4, Claus beating Kozza Smith with Derek third. Another 4-2 from Craig and Max in heat 5 and we must have been thinking that a win was on the cards.

The flying Bellego won heat 6 with Vissing keeping Wethers back in third, and we shared heats 7 and 8 behind Smith and Bellego. All going reasonably to plan.

Then came the slump – 1-5 against Vissing, 1-5 against Tabaka and Pijper, and even a 4-2 against Cook after what looked like a Smith flier. We had gone from 4 up to 6 down. Derek won heat 12 from Aspegren with Tho just failing to get round Aspegren. Craig Cook won heat 13 with Claus at the back, and we got a lucky 4-2 in heat 14 when Barrett stopped while third.

So we went into the last heat 2 down. Craig took the less favourable gate 4 with Jozsef on 2, but the heat was spoilt when the Berwick riders were allowed to move early and gain an unfair advantage. We managed to peg back Smith but it wasn’t enough with Bellego clear.

But it was really the bad spell heats 9-11 which cooked our goose here.