Glasgow Win Tigers Battle
(Posted 19/09/07)

Despite the slick track conditions, both Tigers sides contributed to some good racing at West Row culminating in a last heat decider that saw Glasgow claim the win and the aggregate bonus point.

Glasgow were operating rider replacement for the injured Trent Leverington whilst Mildenhall had Ricky Ashworth guesting for the injured Kyle Legault, rider replacement for Tom P Madsen and a further guest at reserve with Matt Wright deputising for Mark Baseby.

The meeting wasn't without the odd bit of controversy either with a referee error and a couple of close decisions that the home side felt aggrieved by.

The meeting started well for Glasgow, Wato claiming the win from the gate and David McAllan comfortably beating Ashworth for third place. It looked as if the home side were about to hit back immediately when their reserve pairing of Wright and Fry popped out of the gate in heat 2 but Fry, lying in second and under pressure from Michael Coles, came off at the end of the second lap. Michael did very well to lay his bike down to avoid Fry but with both sides preparing for the re-run the referee awarded the race apparently against the rules.

Glasgow's luck did not appear to get any better in heat 3 when with the Tigers on a 5-1 Robert Ksiezak came off on the second lap. Some felt that he had been impeded by Ricky Ashworth but the referee disagreed and the race continued.

Craig Watson won heat 4 comfortably from the gate but surprisingly he and David McAllan succumbed to a 5-1 in heat 5 following poor starts.

Jason King fell in heat 6 allowing Coles to claim third place for a shared heat. Although some of the racing had been close there hadn't been much in the way of passing in the early heats. Parker however showed it was possible in heat 7, tracking Shaun Tacey in the early stages before timing his pass into the lead to perfection.

However things seemed to be taking a turn for the worse for Glasgow when King and Fry recorded an easy 5-1 in heat 8 and for a while it looked like the heat 9 pairing of Ashworth and Suchanek were going to do the same. Lady luck came to the Tigers rescue with Suchanek's bike packing up and turning what looked a certain 5-1 into a shared heat.

After a short interval and a little track grading, things began to hot up. heat 10 produced some excellent speedway with two races in one, Ksiezak doing well to hold off Tomas Suchanek whilst at the back surprisingly King and Parker were doing battle. The third place finish was very close with the referee, rightly in our opinion, calling it in Shane's favour although it is fair to say the home side saw it differently.

The heat 11 result was quite clear however, Craig Watson and David McAllan destroying Tacey and Wright comfortably for Tigers first 5-1 of the night. Mildenhall did their best to hit straight back, Fry and Ashworth making the gate, but an excellent move from Shane Parker saw him pass both Fen Tigers to maintain Glasgow's two point lead.

Wato was once again impressive from the gate and won heat 13 comfortably. It looked for a while as if the two point gap would be maintained in heat 14 with Robert Ksiezak leading. However Suchanek wanted revenge for heat 10 and tracked him before executing a superb pass to claim a heat advantage and leave the meeting tied going into a final heat decider.

Craig Watson had been in excellent form all night and it was no great surprise when he popped out of the gate in front. Parker was at the back but the Mildenhall pairing of Ashworth and Suchanek got into a tangle with each other on the opening bends and Shane took full advantage to slip through into second. there was no way back for the home pairing and Glasgow won the last heat decider in style.

Mildenhall were undoubtedly hampered by missing their top two through injury but Glasgow put in a good team effort with Craig Watson in particular outstanding.