HAVING won the battle to ensure last night’s Premier League meeting went ahead despite the rain, Newcastle Diamonds triumphed on the track against Berwick Bandits.
The action began an hour later than planned due to the conditions, and the very fortunate Newcastle opening pairing were allowed back in to the re-run having both spun into each other on the first bend and hitting the sludge.
In the second attempt, Mark Lemon jetted away to lead and finish first. With Sebastian Alden falling on bend three, the home side went into a 4-2 lead. Adam McKinna, guesting for the injured Diamond, Joe Haines, was riding a solid second as part of a Newcastle 5-1, but the Scot’s engine gave up on the fourth bend of the third lap to gift a shared 3-3 instead.
Kyle Newman, now out of the reserve birth and into the main team, only lasted one bend of his first race as, with Josef Franc turning hard underneath him, he fell to the ground with the race being stopped and Newman excluded from the second running.
Franc then found himself on the wrong side of the speedway law, having fallen on his own on bend three of the first lap, and with time to get off the track parked his bike across the circuit and waved his arms in the air, indicating he thought he’d been taken off. The referee excluded the Bandit and ordered a third running of heat three, won with ease by Stuart Robson who passed Linus Eklof on lap one in the 3-2 result, as Newcastle inched three ahead.
Alden took heat five with ease, well ahead of the chasing Robson, who was under pressure from Ludvig Lindgren in a Bandits 2-4 to reduce the gap to one point, 15-14 with the two skippers, Sneddon and Complin meeting in the next. But with Diamonds’ leader and Lemon out in front, Complin had it all to do but failed to get past third place in a good home maximum.
Guest McKinna held Franc out brilliantly through heat seven to take a fine point as part of a Newcastle 4-2 to take his side seven up, while heat nine required two restarts too, latterly due to another unassisted fall on the third bend, this time for Jade Mudgway who hit the dirt and decided to protest long-distance to the official by waving his arms with the same result at heat three, an exclusion for the Bandit, leaving Complin as the lone Bandit.
Complin’s wild bucking and rearing on the outside won him second in the 4-2 which pushed Newcastle 31-22 up, and following a 3-3 in the 10th, Alden blew heat 11 apart with another big win.
Robson took the vital match-winning win in heat 14, but at the back McKinna was overtaken by Mitch Davey, and a lap later fell on bend four suffering a collarbone injury, after which he was rushed off for X-rays to determine the full damage.
LAST NIGHT’S SCORING
NEWCASTLE DIAMONDS: Mark Lemon 14, Derek Sneddon (Captain) 5+1, Kyle Newman 3, Stuart Robson 12, Claes Nedermark 9+1, Adam McKinna (Guest) 1, Richie Worrall 4+1.
BERWICK BANDITS: Sebastian Alden 9, Ludwig Lindgren 7, Linus Eklof 11, Josef Franc 3+1, Lee Complin (Captain) 5, Mitchell Davey 2+2, Jade Mudgway 4.