Big win but poor Sedgy skittled

REPORT Friday 19th July 2024, 11:04pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Tonight's match should have been one of the highlights of the Armadale season, but circumstances conspired to turn it into a rather scrappy and unsatisfactory event with both teams weakened. We heard beforehand that Claus Vissing and Celina Liebmann had been caught out by the World Computer outage causing their flights to be cancelled, with junior replacements.

To make matters worse the very unfortunate Justin Sedgmen was then brought down in heat 4 when McGurk and Coles clashed, with McGurk's bike racing across the first bend and careering into Sedgmen who had made a smooth start and was leading into the turn.

That was the end of Sedgy's night, with Injury Rider Replacement applying. Comets' problems might have made us think we had a chance of overturning their 32 point advantage for the aggregate bonus but that possibility definitely receded after losing Sedgmen, who is confident he has no serious injuries but went off for a checkup.

Team boss Alex Harkess said "The way things were Comets only had two riders to give us any problem, was the way we were looking at it. I was disappointed for the second meeting running that we lost heat 12, I thought we should have won that one. These guys have got to start stepping up against the lesser opposition in that race.

"It was a great shame to lose Sedgy in his first race through no fault of his own. The rest beat who they should have beaten, and Max James falling was the only last place we got."

Monarchs had been on a 5-1 in the early stages of heat 1, but Pickering and Thomson didn't combine well and Cook grabbed second by slipping inside Kye. McGurk then went under the fence and caused the heat to be stopped, something he managed on three occasions during the night. The rerun went to Cook.

The next two heats were home 5-1s as we assumed control, then came Sedgmen's misfortune. Once again the arrangement to have two ambulances at our meetings limited the delay and the racing was soon under way.

Craig Cook was in fine form as usual, winning his first four heats, and with Batchelor taking 8 from his first three rides it never looked likely that we could reach the 62 points needed to take the bonus. We did manage to stop Batchelor when Fredriksen and Castagna both passed him in heat 9 - Troy then came to a halt and took no further rides.

We managed to take one point from Craig Cook when Josh Pickering got the better of him in heat 13 – this was one of Sam McGurk's stoppages so Josh had to do the job twice. The third Comets' heat leader Antti Vuolas did not really get to grips with our track other than that heat 12 win.

Monarchs had five riders paid for double figures but for obvious reasons, it was not really a night for celebrations.

Full Result Details