Tigers Sneak Home in Last Heat Decider
vRye House, Posted 23/08/04

Glasgow made heavy weather of beating an average Rye House side. The home team suffered a fair bit of bad luck in this one and Rye House used two tactical rides to claw themselves back into the meeting. For a short while it looked like the team using the tacticals could turn out winners-something I still refuse to believe is good for the sport.

The Rye House pair gated well in heat 1 leaving the usually fast gating Stanckl and McAllan work to do. At the end of lap two Stancl went up the inside of Neath whilst McAllan past him on the final lap to ensure a share of the points.

Eric Carrillo was obviously having bike problems going to tapes in heat 2 and although he tried to return to the pits he was waved back as time was running out. The inevitable happened and his bike failed on the first lap leaving Cockle as Glasgows sole rider. Allen won the heat comfortably with Cockle and Boxall changing position a few times before Cockle came out on top.

Heat 3 was shared from the gate with heat 4 providing a comfortable 5-1 from the gate for Parker and Carrillo. With a heat advantage to Glasgow in heat 5, Rye House took the step of bringing Davey Watt in as a TR against Shane Parker and James Cockle in heat 6. Although Watt gated, Parker was on his tail and past him on the back straight of the second lap.

The points were shared again in heat 8 with Boxall suffering Rye's only engine failure of the night whilst in last place, Having been passed by the slow gating David McAllan.

Paul Bentley was caught napping in heat 9 when, with fans already marking up the 5-1 in their programme, he lost concentration and Werner took full advantage to nip through on the final bend and seperate the Tigers pair.

Rye chose not to bring a TR out in heat 10 but when this race was shared they used that to their advantage to bring Masters out as a TR in heat 11, again in opposition to Parker and Cockle. Distaster struck for Parker as his engine failed on the start line. James Cockle had no intention of allowing the Rye pair an easy race though producing what must surely be his best race for Glasgow yet. Masters led coming into the back straight but Cockle got extra grip coming round the second bend and passed him. At the end of the second lap Masters passed the youngster only to be re-passed before the next corner. Cockle rode an excellent line blocking Masters until the end of the third lap when the Rye man finally got the better of him. Cockle kept trying but Masters was away this time and as the Glasgow no 6 came round the third and fourth bend for the final time he had an engine problem and his bike visably slowed with him frantically trying to push it on. It meant Chris Neath, who had been at the back the whole race, was able to slip through for an undeserved second place.

After the excitement of heat 11, heat 12 was a relatively tame affair with points shared. The gremlins returned in heat 13 with Stancl suffering an engine failure on the back straight whilst the Glasgow pair were on a 5-1.

In heat 14 coming into the first bend on the second lap, James Grieves caught extra grip from somewhere and flew into the fence. He was thrown a good 2 meters in the air before landing heavily on his backside and it was a relief when he finally got to his feet-something tells me he might be spending a lot of time on his feet this week after that one! the re-run saw Rye get a heat advantage leaving Glasgow needing at least a 4-2 in the final heat to win.

Parker gated well and although Robson chased hard, Bentley finished ahead of Watt ensuring the Tigers won by the narrowest of margins.

The scorecard and heat details can be found here.

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

Tiger Points:

George Stancl	***	Engine Gremlin strikes again
David McAllan	**	A bit off colour
Paul Bentley	***	Concentration lost a 5-1 in heat 9
James Grieves	****	Decent performance, nasty crash
Shane Parker	****	Just Shane!
James Cockle	***	Superb try in heat 11, excellent effort and attitude
Eric Carrillo	**	Poor by his own standards-have we pushed too hard?