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There were two meetings tonight. At Edinburgh the annual Scottish Open Championship was held while at Somerset the Rebels took on Mildenhall in a Premier League match.
The Scottish Open Championship
Winner: Daniel Nermark (King’s Lynn)
Third: Tai Woffinden (Rye House)
This was another in a long line of thrilling Scottish Open Championships. The field had many riders capable of winning the meeting and, as a result, there was some highly entertaining and determined racing for the two seeded final places and four places for the semi-final.
Right from the start there was a terrific race in the opener which saw Christian Henry make a blinder from the tapes leaving Kevin Doolan and Daniel Nermark in his wake. Doolan however passed the Newcastle man to take the three points.
The excitement continued over the entire 20 heats during which all 16 riders were programmed to meet each other. There were some unfortunate incidents though. In heat 8 Cameron Woodward was rounding James Grieves on the third/fourth bends on the opening lap when Grieves moved out forcing Woodward into the fence. Daniel Nermark in third place had nowhere to go and ploughed straight into Woodward. It looked a serious high speed crash and the ambulance was called. Amazingly both Woodward (although suffering an injury to his ‘bits’ and serious damage to his main machine) and Nermark were able to take their place in the rerun from which James Grieves was excluded. In the rerun, Shane Parker passed Woodward to take the lead while on the third bend Nermark ran the Eastbourne rider to the fence causing Woodward to fall again. This time Woodward was excluded somewhat contentiously and the race was rerun between Nermark and Parker. Nermark won the two man race.
There was another dreadful crash in heat 11 – this time with more serious repercussions. Carl Stonehewer on his own at the back of the field hurtled from his bike into the third bend fence when the front of his machine seemed to collapse. This time the ambulance was needed and Stonehewer was taken to hospital. Tests subsequently revealed that Carl had suffered a broken vertebra between his shoulders.
After the full 20 heats had been completed, Shane Parker topped the list of point scorers together with Tai Woffinden and both riders were seeded directly to the final. The semi-final for the next four point scorers resulted in a thrilling race with the riders swopping places throughout the race. Eventually Daniel Nermark came out on top while Kevin Doolan finally got the better of Kai Laukkanen to take second. One of the pre-meeting favourites, James Grieves, finished ay the back.
In the final Daniel Nermark simply scorched away from the rest of the field to win the race by a distance but the battle for the other three places was fantastic. For all four laps Kevin Doolan was under severe pressure from Shane Parker who was on the outside line while Tai Woffinden nipped away on the inside. Coming off the last bend Doolan saw off Parker’s challenge while Woffinden produced an amazing burst to roar past Parker on the line.
Scorers: Qualifying Heats: Shane Parker 14, Tai Woffinden 12, Daniel Nermark 12, Kai Laukkanen 11, Kevin Doolan 11, James Grieves 10, Christian Henry 9, Cameron Woodward 7, Craig Watson 7, Derek Sneddon 6, Stanislaw Burza 5, Carl Stonehewer 5, Lee Complin 5, Kalle Katajisto 2, Matthew Wethers 1, George Stancl 0. Reserves: Andrew Tully 3, Daniele Tessari 0.
Premier League: Somerset 51, Mildenhall 39 Somerset won the aggregate bonus point by 99-84
Somerset and Mildenhall were both at full strength for this Premier League match.
Having won by three points at Mildenhall, the Rebels might have been expected to romp away with this one but in a match riddled by retirements and falls the Fen Tigers were still in contention until the Rebels finally secured victory with a shared heat 14.
Things started well for the home side when they opened up a six point lead after two races with a 4-2 from Zetterstrom and Walker in heat 1 and a 5-1 in heat 2. Emil Kramer won heat 3 for a shared race before the Fen Tigers hit back with a 2-4 in heat 4 when Tomas Suchanek beat Ritchie Hawkins with Jason King third. The score then stood at 14-10.
Another Kramer win and Katt retiral saw heat 5 shared then the Rebels took another 5-1 from Walker and Zetterstrom in heat 6 stretching their lead to eight points. Back came the Fen Tigers with a 2-4 in heat 7 when former Rebels’ rider Paul Fry beat Ritchie Hawkins with Kyle Legault third. Somerset opened the gap to eight points again with a 4-2 of their own in heat 8 won by Daniel Warwick from Suchanek. The score now read 28-20.
Heat 9 looked as though the home side might add four points to their lead when Kramer and Katt led from the tapes. Mark Baseby and Jason King passed Katt however to share the race. But the Rebels did add four more points over the next two heats with 4-2s in each of them increasing their lead to 12 points. If only Mildenhall had known what was going to happen in heat 12 they would have played their Tactical Ride card. Daniel Warwick fell on the third bend then Emil Kramer did likewise on the third lap gifting a 0-5 to the visitors. It could have been a very rare 0-8! The score now stood at 39-32.
Zetterstrom won again in heat 13 but a retiral from Ritchie Hawkins on the second lap meant that the race was shared. Finally Stephan Katt got on the scoresheet by winning heat 14 from Suchanek and clinching all three points for the Rebels in a shared race. Kramer and added some gloss to the final result with a 5-1 in the last race.
Scorers: For Somerset – Magnus Zetterstrom 13+2 (5)(paid maximum), Emil Kramer 12 (5), Ritchie Hawkins 7 (4), Simon Walker 6 (4), Danny Warwick 6 (4), Jordan Frampton 3+1 (4), Stephan Katt 3 (4).
For Mildenhall – Tomas Suchanek 11 (6), Kyle Legault 6 (4), Paul Fry 5+2 (4), Jason King 5+1 (4), Tom P Madsen 4+2 (5), Mark Baseby 4+1 (4). Shaun Tacey 4 (4).
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