Bad Night at Sheffield
(Posted 16/05/08)

Tigers traveled over to Sheffield for their second meeting in two days, a meeting that many Sheffield supporters commented was one of the poorest seen in recent years.

The state of the track had to be the main talking point before and during the meeting. It was very deep and heavy and it such a poor state that Sheffield felt compelled to issue an apology to the paying public during the evening.

However, it was the same for both sides and there is no doubt that the home side coped far better with it.

Ross Brady once more came in as rider replacement in the opening heat and gated ahead of the rest. Parsons put him under pressure coming out of the second bend and when Ashworth did the same at the end of the first lap Ross was unable to hold them off, both passing him at the start of the second lap.

Things did not get any better in heat two when the Sheffield reserves gated and pulled well clear of the Tigers, Ross Brady retiring early on in the heat and subsequently withdrawing from the meeting.

The Sheffield supporters were a little surprised at the Tigers use of Tomas Topinka as a guest as apparently he is not renowned for his Sheffield performances. however he made the gate in heat 3 but an excellent pass by Andre Compton, squeezing past Topinka on the outside of the third bend relegated him to second place.

Mitchell Davey, in as reserve replacement for Ross Brady, gated in heat 4 but was quickly passed by Wilson and cooper who went on to record the home side's third 5-1 in four heats. It was quickly followed by their fifth, Compton and Smethills easily disposing of Leverington and Hopwood from the gate.

It was getting very boring but heat 6 at least offered something a little different. Ksiezak gated. Heading into turn three, Parsons dived underneath him into the lead but the pass was misjudged and a little wild, carrying him out to the fence. He slid back to third place with Ricky Ashworth managing to come through ahead of Robert Ksiezak into the lead and that was how the heat was to finish.

Topinka came in as a TR in heat 7 but Wilson beat him out of the gate, Topinka finishing second in another spread heat. With Lee Dicken outgating Sam Martin the Tigers actually managed a heat advantage albeit only due to the TR.

Normal service was resumed in heat 8, the Sheffield pairing again recording a 5-1 from the gate. However in fairness to Robert Ksiezak he tried everything in the early stages to make an impression but came off on the third bend trying to swoop round the outside and coming to grief in the exceedingly deep track conditions.

Heats 9 and 10 were also processional 5-1's from the gate in favour of the home side.

Trent Leverington gated in heat 11 but was passed on the back straight by Ben Wilson. Meantime, Glasgow no 8 Ben Hopwood executed a neat pass on Sam Martin on the second lap to claim third place, Martin himself giving up half a lap later.

It was back to 'from the gate' action in heat 12, Compton winning the heat, but Paul Cooper in third challenged Tomas Topinka in second place all the way without being able to find a safe way past.

After an interval, Wilson and Ashworth made the gate in heat 13 but on the back straight Ksiezak and Leverington went passed Wilson in a pincer movement, Robert round the outside with Trent taking the inside line.

Heat 14 looked as if it would be shared with Smethills making the gate followed by the Glasgow pairing but Sam Martin was gifted third place when the track caught Mitchell Davey out at the end of the second lap and he took a tumble.

Sheffield perhaps took pity on Glasgow for heat 15, putting out Parsons and Cooper and the result was that Tigers got their only heat win of the evening courtesy of Tomas Topinka from the gate. The heat was shared with Leverington at the rear.

Overall it was a pretty awful meeting and on the whole it looked like men against boys with Glasgow unable to put on much of a show and the home side far superior in every department. There was certainly very little in the way of racing or entertainment and it was hard to take any positives from the night at all. One perhaps best forgotten

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