A night of thrills, many spills, and some superb close quarter dueling on the Speedway circuit at Central Park ended with another early season narrow defeat for the unlucky Kent SLYDE Kings, as reigning champions Cradley came away with a seven point victory.
The action on Monday evening (27/4) was the Sittingbourne-based side’s first home City Gearboxes National League match of the season and team boss Chris Hunt was left to rue the late withdrawal of Danny Ayres on doctor’s orders – the Newmarket-based racer having failed to have recovered in time from the broken bone in his hand which has now seen him miss both of the SLYDE Kings’ opening league fixtures.
With a depleted side Kent were up against it but a superb fighting display took the Birmingham-based Heathens to the wire on a very dramatic night of racing in front of another bumper Central Park crowd.
Skipper Ben Morley set the trend, showing lightning-fast reactions in the opening heat to roar away from his counterpart in the visitors’ side Max Clegg and hold on despite the teenaged Tyke’s tenacious efforts to pass the Kent no. 1.
Heat 2 was the first of a number of rerun races – as the battle became protracted in its earliest stages and meaning from here on in there was an element of clock-watching too: at the end off a week when the curfew at Central Park has been firmly in the spotlight again, the current 8.30pm deadline hung like a spectre over proceedings once the events of heats 2 & 3 stalled the normally smooth running of proceedings. Heat 3 saw unusually first the two Heathens come to grief with each other, with Neale & the highly rated Perks getting literally entangled down the back straight. Perks was perhaps unfortunate to be the rider excluded from the rerun. That restart saw last week’s individual meeting winner . Adam Sheppard muscle his way to the front before Neale passed him and this time the two home riders were to end in a heap together: Sheppard went out of shape, coming down causing team mate Jamie Couzins (handicapped initially by a 15 metres handicap after failing to beat the two minutes warning at the first time of asking) to plough into him. An easy decision to exclude Sheppard this time from the third staging of the race. Couzins’ 15 metre handicap was less irksome now there were just two of them – though he didn’t trouble Neale . Heat 3 saw returning former Kings rider Luke Harris be the latest faller and he was hit by the following home pairing of Danno Verge and Aaron Baseby – it was to cause a very premature departure from the meeting for the reigning GB Youth Champ from Northolt, Harris signed off unfit to continue with an injured shoulder. The upshot of these opening salvoes was that a single point separated the sides, in the visitors’ favour ;but that was turned around in heat 4 as James Shanes swept to victory and courtesy of a time exclusion for Perks and a retirement by Greaves the home side had forged a lead – albeit by the smallest margin possible! Sadly though this was to be as good as it was ultimately to get for the SLYDE Kings, as a 5-1 from the very quick Clegg and the hugely improved Mogridge (looking nothing like the rider who struggled last year with Scunthorpe, with a second paid 11 point return of the week for his 2015 side) blasted the champs of both of the last two years back into the lead: a position they were never then to relinquish.
Heat 6 brought a touch of controversy to proceedings with Greaves failing to clear the track after a tumble at the second time of asking – the four times GB Youth champion who is currently under threat of a suspended sentence for incidents last year made few friends again by seeming to stand on the track to get a stoppage while home skipper Morley ploughed on in front. The rerun brought another marauding Morley maximum points effort with team mate Verge picking up the available third place and again the gap was back to a deficit of a solitary point. Heats 7 & 10 were two absolute classics: well worth the admission money alone and unlikely to be bettered at many Speedway matches across the UK in any division this term! The first of these classic races saw Shanes on his own after Couzins continued his miserable evening with a fall, against the visiting pairing of the brightly garbed Williamson and solid reserve Neale. The two Heathens stormed into the lead but the GB Under 21 Grasstrack champ who's proving an inspired signing by the SLYDE Kings attacked and attacked; got past Neale and set off after Williamson: magnificently he took him on the back straight on lap four storming past just millimetres from the boards.
Heat 10 saw the undefeated Morley penalised for a starting gate offence and therefore off 15 metres. Step up to the plate Danno Verge who produced his best ride ever around Central Park to hold off his great racing pal Ellis Perks for thee and three quarter laps. Try as he may the Queenslander Perks could not get past Verge and their duel had allowed the handicapped Morley to make up all that penalty-induced ground. In as frenetic a last bend as one will ever witness Perks swept around Verge who was baulked and Morley seizing the opportunity swept past them both to maintain his unbeaten status – a great win from Morley making light of his initial 15 metres handicap and for Verge who proved he can mix it with some of the supposed big boys. The upshot was the gap was down to one point again. Shanes had maintained his own unbeaten run in heat 9 but drafted into heat 11 things did not go as well for the Puddetown racer – unable to make an impression on either Clegg and the quietly impressive Mogridge (whose father had ridden in Kent for both Crayford & Canterbury back in the day) – a 1-5 saw the gap now move out to a near decisive 5 points.
Up to this point Aaron Baseby hadn’t really joined the party but that changed in heat 12 with a win over Williamson; Perks’ chequered night had another low point in this race his bike spluttering and then shuddering to a halt.
The clock really was winning the day now and it seemed a matter of whether the meeting could extend to 13 or 14 heats: heat 15 was clearly not going to be able to be fiied in. The main heat leaders met in an all-star heat 13 but Shanes had bike problems and had to pull out. No matter Morley stormed to victory to complete his maximum but sadly for the homesters with only debutant Rob Watts and Sheppard at their disposal for heat 14 a max-out for the West Midlanders made the final race which never came one which would’ve been academic in any case.
Team boss Chris Hunt was upbeat in defeat. “We showed great fighting spirit out there today – I couldn’t have asked for more. It’s a shame that we’ve lost out now twice in narrow defeats which would’ve certainly been wins had Danny [Ayres[ been fit to ride. I hope Danny will be back to ride in our away match at Rye House and our home Bank Holiday clash (on 4 May at 3pm) vs. Mildenhall.”
Kent SLYDE Kings 38 1) Ben Morley 3 3 3 3 12 (maximum) 2) Danno Verge 0 1' 1 0 1 3+1 3) Aaron Baseby 2 1 1 3 7 4). R/R for Danny Ayres 5) James Shanes 3 3 3 1 R 10 6) Jamie Couzins 2 0 F/X , M 2 7) Adam Sheppard F/X 1 1 1 0 3 8) Rob Watts 1 1
Cradley Heathens 45 1) Max Clegg 2 3 3 1' 9+1 2) Arron Mogridge 1' 2' 2' , 2' 7+4 3) Matt Williamson 3 2 0 2 7 4) Luke Harris F/X Withdrawn – injured 0 5) Nathan Greaves R F/X 2 2 4 6) Michael Neale 3 2 M 1' 0 3 9+1 7) Ellis Perks F/ X M 2 3 2 R 2' 9+1