Semi Final Woes For Tigers Pair
Posted 05/08/06

The Scottish Open ended in dramatic fashion for both Danny Bird and Shane Parker last night at the semi final stage of an excellent meeting at Armadale last night.

Both had a relatively good night up until then with Danny Bird looking like the only rider who could possibly mount a challenge to Berwick's Stanislaw Burza towards the end.

Burza inflicted Bird's only 'from the tapes' defeat on Danny when he outgated him in heat 10 and Danny had to come from behind Theo Pijper to claim second but was unable to catch the impressive Pole. Danny's final heat started his run of misfortune however. He misjudged the tapes trying to anticipate and was excluded. Rather bizarrely for an individual meeting he was then allowed to come back in off 15m and as reserve Sean Stoddart was already in the race in place of the injured David Howe many felt Danny would get the single point he needed to get him straight through to the final. However Stoddart rode a good race challenging Karlsson all the way and Danny's effort to pass at the end of the second lap was misjudged and left him trailing at the back.

Shane Parkers route to the semi was less dramatic. His first race saw new Monarch Tessari take him off on the opening bends with the referee generously calling all four back, Shane coming in second in the re-run. His third ride saw him pass Burza on the opening bends but just when it looked as if he would pull clear, Burza pulled of a masterly pass of him on the third and fourth bend and Shane had to settle for second.

In the semi final, lining up against Jason Lyons and Magnus Karlsson, the Glasgow pairing were probably the favourites to go through. However a very uncharacteristic lock up by Danny on the first bend left him high and dry at the back. This was followed by an expensive sounding blow up of Shane's engine towards the end of the back straight and it was game over for the Tigers challenge.

Stan Burza went on to win the final and in fairness this was the correct result as he had been the most outstanding rider all night.

Well done to Danny and to Shane on decent performances but the luck was just not with the Tigers boys.