Anyone Got A Bike?
Glasgow v Stoke Posted 27/06/04

As a meeting, this one had about everything. Despite heavy rain delaying the start and making an occassional appearance during the evening both teams take great credit for providing good competitive racing and entertainment. By the end of the meeting though, I believe the Tigers had gone through quite a few machines hence the 'Anyone got a bike?'.

After a 15 minute delay to allow rain to pass, heat 1 started uneventfully with Bentley and Stancl staking a 5-1 from the tapes. Heat 2 surprisingly saw Carrillo finish last but points were shared thanks to Leverington passing Brown to take the heat win.

Grieves broke the tapes in heat 3 and went off 15m. Unfortunately Jonah didn't make the gate and Stoke were to take a comfortable 5-1. Heat 4 was to provide the first talking point. Leverington made the gate and was being challenged by Carrillo when the two came together entering the back straight and Parker was brought down in the melee. It was a difficult one to call in my opinion, as much a racing incident as anything but the usually mild mannered Trent Leverington disagreed! It was a very unpleasant crash and it was no surprise that Leverington was replaced in the re-run with Brown. Parker lookde to be struggling but still went out and won teh re-run. Carrillo was excluded.

An uneventful 4-2 for the Tigers in heat 5 was followed by a good race between Stancl and Staechmann for second place in heat 6 with passing and counterpassing. Staechmann won the battle but Bentley won the race! Again heat 7 provided good racing after both Glasgow riders missed the gate. Shane Parker got past Kessler on the first lap then reeled Mogridge in before executing a text book pass on the backstraight of the final lap to take the win. At almost the same time, Blackman past Kessler to ensure a heat advantage.

More passing followed in heat 8 with Carrillo last out of the gate but passing both Stoke riders to ensure a 5-1 with the impressive Bentley. Heat 9 saw another 5-1 for the Tigers and things were looking good.

Its never that easy for Glasgow though and heat 10 saw the Stancl ef on the start line. Mogridge had the better of Bentley and Stoke got a 4-2.

Stoke brought in the long awaited TR in heat 11 and once more we saw the bad side of this rule to a certain extent. Pickering took the TR but could not match Parker. However on the final lap, Blackman having fallen and re-mounted earlier, Pickerings bike developed a fault and it took all Clews skill to stay behind him.

In heat 12 Staechmann was brought in as a GDTS in place of Tom Brown and although he past Jones on lap 2 he was unable to make up any ground on Kessler and Carrillo who were battling for the win, the Stoke man coming out on top.

It was now getting close for the bonus. Heat 13 was won by Parker but awarded when Stancl tried to pass Staechmann on the final bend and accidentally knocked the popular Dane off. Stancl was rightly excluded and the Potters denied the opportunity to use a TR in heat 14.

Heat 14 was to see another nasty crash involving Mogridge Carrillo and Brown when Mogridge shed a chain and the other two were unable to avoid ploughing in to him despite every effort. Carrillo was down for quite some time and was unable to take his place in the re-run. He had been riding Jonahs bike after earlier problems with his own and it looked a write-off. Second attempt to run the heat also resulted in a stoppage when Brown came off on the first bend but finally Grieves and replacement Blackman were able to record a 5-1 to take it down to the last heat to decide the bonus point.

Glasgow needed a 4-2 in heat 15 to secure the bonus point and Parker and Grieves were the men nominated to get it. Parker led from the tapes and although Mogridge challenged Grieves hard the Scot managed to hold on to claim a 5-1 and the bonus point.

Undoubtedly losing Trent was a major blow for Stoke but Tom Brown rose to the challenge. Staechmann rode well and was ably backed by Mogridge and Pickering.

Glasgow operated as a team with the others covering for Stancl's bikes and Jonah's surprisingly poor form today. Bikes were also being shared round as everyone pulled together. It was good to see Corey do well today and hopefully he will take some confidence from that.

Both teams deserve credit for riding hard but fair in difficult early conditions and credit should also be given to the Glasgow track staff for preparing such a good racing surface despite the torrential rain of earlier in the day and week.

The scorecard and heat details can be found here.

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

Tiger Points:

George Stancl	**	Poor display
Paul Bentley	****	An excellent display
Graham Jones	**	Off Colour
James Grieves	***	Solid once he got going
Shane Parker	****	Another excellent display
Corey Blackman	***	Much better from Corey
Eric Carrillo	**	Crashes prevented him doing well