Hammered
(Posted 28/04/08)

Tigers were well and truly hammered at home by a solid and impressive looking Edinburgh side, although no doubt Trent Leverington could have done without the alternative ‘hammering’ he took in the opening heat courtesy of Ryan Fisher.

It is always sore to lose to a derby meeting but this meeting wasn’t just merely a defeat, it was a humiliation with the Monarchs worthy winners and Glasgow’s team manager left reeling at what he described as a gutless display from most of his side.

Derby meetings tend to court controversy – the nearest we got to it was in the opening heat.  Leverington had made a good gate, Ryan Fisher came alongside on his inside on the opening bends and in a move that can be at best described as reckless, Trent was unceremoniously dispatched into the fence coming out of bend 2.  Trent's bike was completely wrecked, ‘luckily’ it bore the brunt of the collision with the fence although Trent did not come off too well either.  Fisher was correctly excluded for unfair riding.

After extensive repairs to the fence the meeting once more got underway, Trent appearing for the re-run – or as it turned out both re-runs as Sneddon initially jumped the gate.  When the race finally got underway, Sneddon was quickest out of the traps and led from start to finish.  Trent passed Robert Ksiezak on the back straight of the opening lap and chased Sneddon hard but the Edinburgh captain won easily.

A surprisingly poor gate from Grajczonek contrasted with the Edinburgh pairing of Summers and Tully making good starts and opening up a gap early on.  Josh gave chase and came close to Tully on the final lap, nearly catching him on the second bend then just failing to find the drive needed off the final bend to challenge on the run in to the line.  Mitchell Davey struggled in this one and seemed to have problems with the second and fourth bends.

Heat 3 finally gave the tigers something to smile about.  Parker shot from the gate and was flying for most of the race although appeared to back off coming out of the final bend.  It was still no surprise to everyone in the stadium however when a new track record time of 57.1 was announced. The heat itself was shared and well spread out.

Aaron Summers repeated his heat 2 win in heat 4, again winning from the tapes.  Brady initially split the visitors pair but Wethers passed inside him on the third bend of the opening lap.  From there on in Edinburgh opened up an embarrassingly large gap to win easily.

Parker came out on top of a hard opening bend with Sneddon and was to win heat 5 easily.  The action was at the rear with Lee Dicken trying constantly to find a way passed Ryan Fisher, coming very close at the end of the third lap then coming off on the final bend trying to find a way through.

With the gap already at 8 points and Trent Leverington announced as being withdrawn from the meeting, Glasgow took the bold step of bringing Shane Parker in off 15m as Trent’s replacement in heat 6. Wethers gated but Ksiezak  hit back coming out of bend 2 slightly ahead.  It was short lived though as Wethers reclaimed the lead with an inside pass on bend 3, quickly opening up a good gap.  Meantime at the rear, Tully was doing a good job of blocking Parker for the first two laps before Ksiezak, conceding Wethers was out of reach, dropped back.  He slowed the race right down at the start of lap 3, Tully chose the wrong line and Parker was left with a sweep round the outside of bend 2 into second place.  Tully slid off and remounted as Parker pulled away and Tigers at least got some return for the TS.

Any hope of a comeback was short lived.  Jonasson won the next heat from the gate despite Grajczonek's attentions on the opening bends.  Josh was then left to try and hold off the impressive Lawson.  He managed for three laps but on the final lap Lawson swept round the outside on the pits bend and although Josh never gave up he was unable to return the compliment.

Robert Ksiezak was now brought out in the black and white helmet for heat 8 with Josh Grajczonek coming in to partner him in place of Mitchell Davey. Ksiezak completely missed the gate, Edinburgh’s Summers hit the front and with Ryan Fisher passing inside Josh Grajczonek on bend 2 it was effectively game over.  It can only be assumed that Josh wasn’t fully aware of the current TR rules as rather bizarrely he slowed almost to a stop on the pits bend of the final lap to allow Ksiezak, who was a considerable distance behind him, through for third place.

It was back to the Shane Parker show in heat 9, Shane winning comfortably again from the gate although Andrew Tully did put up some resistance in the early stages

Grajczonek was back out in heat 10 in place of Leverington and came a cropper before the opening bend when apparently his forks went.  The referee called all four back.  Josh came to tapes on his second bike, he and Robert were well beaten from the gate by the Lawson Jonasson pairing.

It didn’t get any better in heat 11 when Brady and Davey were beaten by an embarrassing margin by the Monarchs pairing of Fisher and Sneddon.

After quite a few heats that you would struggle to call racing, there was at last some action in heat 12 with two races in one.  Out front, Shane Parker got his toughest test of the afternoon thanks to the challenge of William Lawson particularly in the early stages.  In the race for the minor placing's, Andrew Tully got the better of Josh Grajczonek coming out of the second bend but Josh hit back down the outside on the back straight before clamping the inside line on bend 3 to come through into third.  Tully tried hard for the rest of the race to hit back but Josh blocked his moves to claim third place and a very rare Tigers heat advantage.

Grajczonek was out again in heat13.  Wethers gated and it looked as if his partner Sneddon would make a move round the outside to join him.  However Sneddon got all out of sorts on the second bend, Josh and Ross Brady took full advantage to come through and relegate the Edinburgh captain to the rear. Josh took up the mantle to challenge Wethers, coming close at the end of the third lap before going too wide on the pits bend of lap 4 and allowing Wethers to pull clear.  At the back, Brady was holding off Sneddon, helped by another error from Sneddon on the same bend on lap 3.

Heat 14 saw three in a row for Grajczonek but it was Edinburgh reserve Aaron Summers who was to claim the plaudits in this one.  He had quietly recorded three wins but seemed to have blown all chances of a maximum when he broke the tapes and was nominated to go off 15m in the re-run. Jonasson gated and was gone.  Dicken and Grajczonek settled in to team ride although Summers was buzzing all over the back of them.  At the end of the third lap Summers pulled off a superb move, squeezing through the small gap between Dicken on the outside and Grajczonek on the inside to get ahead of Grajczonek.  He kept the momentum going to drive under Lee Dicken on the opening bend of the final lap and into second, then going on to complete his impressive and well deserved paid maximum.

The formality of heat 15 saw Edinburgh win the toss with Wethers and Lawson off 1 and 3 against Parker and Ksiezak.  All that was up for grabs at this stage was a chance for the Edinburgh pair to try and claim Shane’s scalp from the tapes.  The reality of it was that Shane won a pretty tame final heat from the gate.

Overall a day that Tigers fans will want to forget although no doubt our friends in the East will keep reminding us. Stewart’s comments about gutless performances after the meeting were not out of order or over the top. Overall the ease with which Glasgow allowed their opponents to win this meeting was embarrassing.

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Glasgow Tigers speedway - posted on glasgow speedway dot com, an unofficial glasgow tigers speedway website.