Glasgow Trio in Scottish Open
(Posted 02/08/08)

Glasgow's Dane Anders Andersen joined team mates Trent Leverington and Robert Ksiezak as a late replacement in the Scottish open after Edinburgh's Tomas Jonasson failed to make it due to flight problems.

It was Anders first time at Armadale and will have given him an introduction to another UK track.

The meeting itself was won by Rory Schlein but the Tigers representatives rode sensibly on a track that in the early stages in particular was rather greasy.

Robert was the first Tiger in action, out in heat 1 and hit the from from the gate. Aaron Summers came under him rather hard and erratically at the end of the opening lap. The pass verged on the unacceptable, Robert shut off allowing both Edinburgh riders through and sensibly settled for third place.

Anders was out in heat 2 for his first introduction to Armadale. He struggled particularly with the first and third bends on the opening lap and finished well off the pace at the rear.

Heat 3 was Trent's turn, he finished third in a heat that was from the gate.

All three Tigers were up against each other in heat 5. Robert made a pretty sharp gate and looked comfortable going into the third bend which was when a very late red light was shown. The referee bizarrely called an unsatisfactory start and warned Robert. The re run saw the only non Tiger Ty Proctor gate and he was gone. Anders was in second place until Robert passed inside him on the second bend of the third lap but none of the Tigers looked particularly comfortable on the track and there was a bit of wobbling especially in the early stages.

George Stancl won heat 9 from the gate but Robert held on for second place ahead of Joe Screen despite nearly coming to grief at the end of the third lap.

Anders was out once again in heat 10 but was still struggling and finished off the pace at the back again.

With James Grieves out of the meeting after a heat 4 crash, Trent was one of only three riders who came to the tapes in heat 11. Three quickly became two as Wethers slid off on his own at the back on bend 2 of the opening lap and Trent went on to win the 'race' easily by over quarter of a lap from Michal Makovsky - Trent's reaction at the end of the heat said it all as he looked more embarrassed than anything else at what had basically been four training laps.

Robert was out in a three man heat in heat 13, which was easily won by Travis McGowan from the tapes with Robert easily claiming second place after passing inside Derek Sneddon on the opening bends of lap 2 and quickly putting a decent gap between them.

Anders was still at the rear in heat 15 but he was significantly closer than he had been in his earlier races.

Schlein easily won heat 16 with Andrew Tully claiming second after a nice pass on Leverington up the inside coming into the backstraight on the opening lap leaving Trent to settle for third place

Robert settled for a sensible third place in heat 17, another heat from the gate, finishing on a respectable 8 points which was only just outside the 9 points needed for a semi final place. Trent finished his night with a second place one heat later, doing well to hold off the close attentions of home rider Aaron Summers for almost the entire race.

Anders final race showed that he was starting to come to terms with the track although it ended with Tigers fans hearts in their mouths as he crashed heavily on the fourth bend. Joe Screen won the heat from the gate with all the action between Anders and Andrew Tully. Anders had made the better gate and held Tully off until the second bend of the final lap when Tully passed sweetly inside him. Anders was not for giving up and went for the outside blast on bends three and four, something that has caught many riders out over the years. the inevitable happened as he was drawn towards the fence and the bike crashed heavily into the fence with Anders just managing to get off it on time. Unfortunately the bike rebounded back off the fence and hit him but fortunately Anders was able to walk away.

It wasn't the best nights racing overall, Schlein was a thoroughly deserving and classy winner. Some of the Edinburgh team seemed determined to try and come as close as possible to knocking off their team mates at times but close racing was really pretty non existent.

Trent and Robert both rode well and rode sensibly and can be very happy with their contribution. It was difficult for Anders, he did struggle with the track but will undoubtedly have benefited from the experience.

.

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