ENJOYABLE NIGHT'S RACING

NEWS Friday 3rd April 2009, 9:21am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Scotwaste Monarchs more than reversed the previous night's score, winning 53-39 against Sheffield to take 3 points in the Premier Trophy.

Sheffield are not always the most entertaining of visitors to Armadale but on this occasion they put on a good show. Auty was a standout, and most of the others had their moments too.

Monarchs lost a few points, as ever, though this time it was early exclusions rather than bike failures which cost them. Aaron Summers (heat 1) and Ryan Fisher (heat 6) lost out and at that point we were only 4 up.

Ryan was otherwise unbeaten and everyone other than Sean scored well. Sean was handicapping himself with some terrible starts.

Auty was a revelation and seems to have completely regained the great promise he showed as a youngster. The crowd were initially a bit antagonistic towards him following his uncalled-for assault on Thomas at Sheffield, but no-one could argue with what he did on the track.

He got a flier in heat 2, but had wins from the back against Aaron, Thomas and Michal, and finished the night with excellent rides against Andrew and Ryan in the last two heats.

On Saturday night we go to Berwick, hoping to pick up some away reward. The Bandits did well to get an away point at Redcar and it could well be these little successes which decide the qualifiers.