Victor Victorious!

The Stellar Monarchs made it over the line tonight for their first home win of the season by a narrow 46-43 margin, largely thanks to a memorable personal performance by Victor Palovaara.

Team manager Alex Harkess said "I'm very pleased we won obviously but we didn't half make it hard for ourselves. We only had two riders who won a race but Victor won six of them! I was very sorry he didn't get his maximum because he deserved it. We need improvement elsewhere in the side."

The Swedish reserve won heats 2, 4, 8, 12, 14 and the last heat decider against top Bandits Cook and Kemp on a night neither he nor the home fans are likely to forget.

The racing fell short of the high standard set the previous week but the closeness of the scores kept things tense. Both sides can look back on heats in which they might have scored additional points.

Oskar Polis had been the star of the show for Monarchs the previous weekend but it would not be fair to expect that level of performance every week this early in his UK career on a track which he admits to not having mastered yet. He did make the start in his second ride ahead of Drew Kemp but he spun off on the first corner. He was taken out of his final ride because Palovaara simply had to be utilised!

Heat 12 should have been an opportunity for a home advantage and at the first running Swedes Palovaara and Grahn were away. Dayle Wood seemed to fall on his own at the first bend but the referee called all four back, and in the restart Grahn was held at the back.

Justin Sedgmen was the only other Monarchs' race winner, taking heat 1 and heat 13. In the latter race he was brought down by an uncharacteristically rash inside passing move by Craig Cook, who (after some delay) was excluded. That gave Monarchs the chance of the first of two successive 4-2s – Palovaara dropping his only point in the heat 13 rerun in which he piled pressure on Kildemand for second spot.

Palovaara finished the job with a tapes-to-flag win in the last heat decider, but Sedgmen though well placed in the early stages was pegged back by Cook and Kemp.

For their part Bandits will rue the last place Cook opened with and his heat 13 exclusion, plus a failure to take an advantage of what seemed a certain 5-1 in heat 7. With Polis excluded Matt Marson was left on his own, but Kemp and Hagon tangled up when well clear and all they could get was a 3-2.

Kemp was outstanding for Berwick, backed up by Cook, Kildemand and their gritty captain Danyon Hume. They did get the aggregate bonus though they would probably need to win at Glasgow to progress in the competition.