CARDIFF TRACK CAUSES PROBLEMS, BUT CRAIG GETS TWO RIDES

NEWS Saturday 1st June 2013, 8:40pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Emil Sayfutdinov won the meeting and extended his lead in the GP, Craig Cook had his first two GP rides, and Tai Woffinden was regrettably injured in a Cardiff Grand Prix dominated by talk of the track.

The reports overnight were that the track hadn’t packed in properly due to damp shale, supported by various Twitter and Facebook comments and photos. Part of the track was relaid overnight, something of a miracle in itself, but the outcome was that the track surface was dangerous and the riders were often in trouble.

It may not have been track conditions which caused the Woffinden injury; this came in heat 14 as Lindgren dived inside his Wolves’ team mate, with Woffinden swerving into Pedersen, and three riders (not Lindgren) coming to grief.

The ref excluded Lindgren, perhaps a dubious decision for a tough move but not an outrageous one. Sadly Tai was diagnosed with a broken collar bone.

That meant that Craig Cook took Tai’s place in the rerun, against Pedersen and Vaculik. He jumped the start the first time, then rode carefully to take the gift point. Cookie is not the sort of rider to take major chances on a bad track when it is basically an experience-only situation.

He also had a ride in heat 19 with Andreas Jonsson withdrawing.

Emil Sayfutdinov was able to take advantage of the situation, including a rerun final race which he hadn’t been leading, to win from Iversen and Kasprzak.

Woffinden is still in second but his prospects will depend on whether he can be patched up to ride in the next meeting.