Tigers Win Tame Derby
v Edinburgh, Posted 15/08/04

Tigers had their work cut out to restore some pride following the lack lustre performance at Armadale on Friday night. Most fans had already conceded the bonus point but it was important for Glasgow to put Fridays display behind them and regain a bit of form.

It didn't start well however, an engine failure for Stancl in heat 1 whilst leading resulted in the Tigers going 5-1 down in heat 1. This was partly clawed back in a well spread out heat 2.

The first running of heat 3 saw Schlein rear from the gate and cause the unfortunate Bentley into the fence on the first bend. Schlein was rightly excluded and the Tigers pairing easily took a 5-1 from the re-run. This feat was to be repeated by Parker and Carrillo after a shocking start by Carr and suddenly things were looking better for the Ashfield men.

The third 5-1 in a row followed from Bentley and Grieves although Bentley had to use every ounce of skill to hold off Frede Schott.

Carr came in as a TR in heat 6 but despite gating last Stancl executed a superb first bend to lead coming out of bend 2 and there was no way Carr was going to catch him. McAllan made Carr work hard for second place.

The impressive Schlein brought Glasgow back down to earth in heat 7 leading from the gate and Glasgow were surprisingly to concede another 2-4 in heat 8 with David McAllan disappointingly loosing third place on the line.

The impressive Grieves Bentley partnership were to claim another 5-1 in heat 9 and not surprisingly Edinburgh chose to bring Schlein in as a TR in heat 10, a race he won comfortably.

Things were tending to be a bit processional at this stage and heat 11 was no different with Parker leading from gate to tapes by quite a significant margin.

On form, everyone expected Schlein to win heat 12 comfortably but thankfully no-one told Bentley and Carrillo that. Bentley was able to pull clear whilst Eric held off Schlein for 3 laps with a sterling effort.

Heat 13 looked like being another 5-1 for the Tigers until Stancl's bike started playing up allowing Schott through. Geoorge did well to manage to hold onto 3rd although the alarming rate at which he is going through engines must be causing increasing concern.

Heat 14 was shared with Woodward again getting the better of Carrillo before Edinburgh took a 5-1 in the academic heat 15.

Overall there was a vast improvement in the Tigers performance on Friday night. they were hungrier and in particular Bentley looked a different rider.

The bonus point was never really on the cards with Edinburgh having the impressive Schlein in their line up but more importantly the Glasgow team pulled together and secured the home win in what must be one of the tamest derby meetings ever seen at Ashfield

The scorecard and heat details can be found here.

Pictures from this meeting, courtesy of Lioness, can be found here

Tiger Points:

George Stancl	**	Plagued by gremlins still
David McAllan	**	Committed but struggled at no 2
Paul Bentley	*****	A different rider!
James Grieves	***	Faded a little towards the end
Shane Parker	****	Did well despite injury
James Cockle	**	Struggled and looks to have bike problems
Eric Carrillo	****	Good all round performance again