Around the Premier League Tracks 2007

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Saturday, 6 September

Three meetings took place tonight. At Rye House the Rockets met the Isle of Wight in the second leg of the semi-final of the Premier League Play Offs while at Stoke the Potters took on Somerset in the second leg of their quarter final tie for the Young Shield. The other match was at Workington where the Comets raced against Newcastle in the first leg of their quarter final Young Shield tie.


Premier League Play Offs, semi-final, second leg: Rye House 61, Isle of Wight 29 Rye House qualified for the final on aggregate by 105-75.

Both Rye House and the Isle of Wight were at full strength for this match.

Rye House cruised into the final of the Premier League Play Offs to meet either King’s Lynn or Sheffield with a massive 30 point aggregate win. It was not really surprising given the hammering the Islanders received last time they rode at Hoddesdon and the tiny lead they carried forward from the first leg.

The visitors gave the Rockets a surprise by taking a 2-4 from the opening heat won by Chris Holder from Chris Neath but it was all downhill for them after that. The Rockets hit them with five consecutive 5-1s to lead by 27-9 leaving the Islanders stranded. The final straw came as early as heat 5 when, yet again on the Rye track, Chris Holder blew a Tactical Ride. With the Islanders trailing 17-7 they gave the TR to Holder. On the third lap both Tai Woffinden and Holder came down and the referee excluded Holder and awarded the race as a 5-1 to Rye House.

Jason Bunyan won heat 7 for a 3-3 then Gathercole took two points behind Chris Neath for a 4-2 which took the score to 34-14. The rest of the meeting consisted of three 5-1s to the home side and four shared races. It was as well for the Isle of Wight that Stefan Ekberg turned in his worst score at Rye House since signing for the Rockets or they might well have been looking at an even bigger defeat than this. Ekberg was the only Rocket to register a last place, managing two of them, over the whole meeting.older

Scorers: For Rye House– Tai Woffinden 12+2 (5), Tommy Allen 12+2 (5), Chris Neath 11 (4), Adam Roynon 8+2 (4), Steve Boxall 8+1 (4), Luke Bowen 7+3 (4), Stefan Ekberg 3+2 (4).

For the Isle of Wight– Chris Holder 12 (5), Jason Bunyan 7 (5), Cory Gathercole 4 (4), Krzysztof Stojanowski 3 (4), Andrew Bargh 2 (5), Glen Phillips 1 (4), Chris Johnson 0 (4).



Young Shield quarter final, second leg: Stoke 59, Somerset 33 Somerset qualified for the semi-final on aggregate by 93-91.

Stoke were without Rusty Harrison and Glenn Cunningham so used Rider Replacement at number 4 and had Tony Atkin as a guest at number 3. Somerset had Jason Doyle as a guest for Magnus Zetterstrom.

It looked a forlorn hope for the Potters to pull back a 24 point deficit from last night, even more so when they had lost Glenn Cunningham, but pull it back they did in one of the best comebacks of the season.

There was little hint of what was to come in the early stages of the match. Wins for Jason Doyle, Stephan Katt and Emil Kramer in the opening five heats with only one Stoke race winner, Claus Vissing in heat 4, restricted the home side to a two point advantage which meant that they were still 22 points behind on aggregate with ten heats left. The Potters then stepped up a gear with two 4-2s and a 5-1 over the next three heats to increase their lead to ten points leaving them with 14 more to pull back with the score at 29-19.

Tony Atkin and Claus Vissing took a 5-1 in heat 9 and Lee Complin and Ben Barker brought worried looks to the Rebels camp with another maximum in heat 10 so with the Potters lead on the night now standing at 18 points, just six behind on aggregate, Somerset gave the unbeaten Jason Doyle a Tactical Ride in heat 11. This turned out to be a disastrous race for the Rebels. Doyle missed the start and the Potters gated to lead from the off. On bend four of the second lap, Jason Doyle got out of shape and crashed into the air fence. Worse still, Simon Walker ran into Doyle causing him to withdraw from the meeting. In the rerun the Potters added another 5-1 to surge 22 points ahead although Emil Kramer put the brakes on the home side’s scoring spree by winning heat 12 for a shared race. This took the score to 47-25 and the Rebels were now in trouble although still two ahead on aggregate.

Stephan Katt had to replace Jason Doyle in heat 13 and the Potters took advantage of the Rebels’ misfortunes by hitting another 5-1 which put them two points ahead on aggregate. In heat 14 Emil Kramer took a Tactical Substitute ride from 15 metres back. In the first running Jordan Frampton fell and was excluded from the rerun in which Emil Kramer got past Barrie Evans. He couldn’t catch Ben Barker though so the race resulted in a 4-4 which meant that the tie went down to a last heat decider with the Rebels trailing by two points and needing a 2-4 to force a run-off. In the last heat Emil Kramer gated with Claus Vissing in second place. The tie was decided behind them. Ritchie Hawkins and Lee Complin had a real battle for that vital third place point but on the last lap, just as it looked like Hawkins would take it, Lee Complin got up on the line to pass the Somerset man for the point which put Stoke through to the next round.

Scorers: For Stoke – Claus Vissing 14+3 (6), Lee Complin 13+2 (6), Barrie Evans 12+1 (6), Ben Barker 10+2 (5), Tony Atkin 7+2 (4), Jaimie Smith 3+1 (3).

For Somerset – Emil Kramer 14 (6)(with 4 point TS), Jason Doyle 6 (3), Ritchie Hawkins 5 (5), Stephan Katt 4 (5), Simon Walker 3 (4), Jordan Frampton 1 (4), Daniel Warwick 0 (3).



Young Shield, quarter final, first leg: Workington 58, Newcastle 35

Workington again used Rider Replacement for Mattia Carpanese and nominated Scott James as their number 8 while Newcastle had George Stancl at number 1 as a guest for Christian Henry and used Rider Replacement for Jonas Raun at number 2.

The Comets stormed into a 16 point lead over the opening 6 heats but Newcastle fought back well to win the next 6 heats by 17-22 to cut the gap to just 11 points with three heats to go. However it all fell apart for them when Workington scored 5-1s in each of the last three heats to win by 23 points leaving the Diamonds with it all to do in the second leg tomorrow night.

The Comets provided the first seven race winners and took six heat advantages, two 5-1s and four 4-2s, to lead by 26-10. Newcastle finally stopped the rot in heat 7 by sharing the race before finally hitting back to get back into the match in heat 8. In this heat Carl Wilkinson took a Tactical Ride and won the race followed home by Paul Clews to score a big 1-8 ahead of the Branney brothers with James falling on the third lap while at the back. This clawed back seven points for the Diamonds with the score standing at 30-21. Although James Wright and Craig Branney replied with a 4-2 in heat 9 the next three races were all shared in no small part due to two retirements by John Branney taking the score to 43-32.

Just when Newcastle needed to dig deep to keep it close they collapsed. Kauko Nieminen and Ulrich Ostergaard took a 5-1 in heat 13 from George Stancl and Carl Wilkinson before the Branney brothers did likewise to Clews and Stoddart. The Comets completed the demolition of their visitors with a final 5-1 from Nieminen and James Wright for the 23 point win.

Newcastle managed only one race winner – Wilkinson on his TR in heat 8 - which is likely to cost them dearly in the second leg.

Scorers: For Workington – Kauko Nieminen 15 (5)(full maximum), James Wright 14+1 (5)(paid maximum), Ulrich Ostergaard 11+1 (4)(paid maximum), Craig Branney 8+1 (5), Charles Wright 5+1 (3), John Branney 5+1 (7), Scott James 0 (1)

For Newcastle – Carl Wilkinson 12 (6)(with 6 point TR), Josef Franc 9 (5), Paul Clews 7+3 (7), George Stancl 5 (4), Sean Stoddart 2+2 (5), Sam Dore 0 (3).