The Kent SLYDE Kings continued their rich run of form with an emphatic victory to retain the John Cearns Cup at Central Park on Monday (18/5).
The blue sky may have been unpredicted on a day when the so-called weather experts had forecast non-stop rain but it was an expectedly high-tone performance by a SLYDE Kings’ septet who are now firing on all four cylinders and the only thing raining in was a successive of excellent race wins by Chris Hunt’s rampant charges.
For skipper Ben Morley it was a second maximum in four days, following up his full house in the draw up at Coventry on Friday with as solid a performance as one could ever expect to see. Never mind being Kent’s top man, on this form the Southend speedster is surely a match for anyone in this division, as his position on top of the City Gearboxes National League’s provisional averages for May confirms.
Morley’s excellence was underlined in the very first race of a hugely entertaining challenge match on Monday when he was outgated by the division’s top man of last term, the National League Riders Champion of 2014, Dan Halsey – Morley tracked the Mildenhall man down lap by lap, bend by bend, straight by straight before a fantastic manoeuvre down the back straight on the final lap saw battling Ben pass a bewildered Halsey and into a winning lead. It was the perfect start on a track to which additional supplies of shale were added last week and the difference was evident with some excellent racing all evening.
A heat two maximum by the SLYDE Kings’ improving reserves Adam Sheppard & Jamie Couzins underlined that improvement in their recent fortunes and propelled the home side into an early six point lead – one that was never to be relinquished. Heat 3 indeed was destined to be their only reverse when first Danny Ayres fell when trying to get back on terms with impressive visitor Arron Mogridge and then when team mate Aaron Baseby brought down Mogridge in an attempted third bend pass the race was stopped with Baseby excluded and the Dons had a 5-1 awarded to them.
The two point gap then was a close as it was ever to get and after James Shanes (fresh from another Grasstrack championship won the day before in the Fenlands) won heat 4 it was time for Ayres and Baseby to put behind them the troubles of heat 3 with a 5-1, easily beating a rather demoralised looking Halsey.
The entertainment kept coming with the always great value as a visiting rider Darryl Ritchings leading Morley but suffering the same fate as his skipper when the Essex-based SLYDE Kings’ based no. 1 simply roared past him to take another win on the way to his full house. Rob Watts appeared to have made some contact with Sheppard when the Kings’ no. 7 fell on the first bend but experienced ref Graham Reeve deemed it minimal and had let the race go on to the obvious chagrin of young Adam.
Heat seven was an absolute classic – one of the best races ever seen at Central Park. Ritchings got the trap on Shanes and there then followed two and a half laps of side by side action as Ritchings fought to hold off a gravity defying Shanes – literally no-one in the sport today rides a Speedway bike like young James who seems at one with the machine whilst at the same time barely actually on it at all, as he throws this body and bike together into shapes which bring audible gasps from the crowd, his eventual pass on the inside of such a top class rider as Ritchings had to be seen to be believed. Buy the DVD! England’s great double World Speedway Champion of the 50s and early ‘60s Peter Craven was known as the Wizard of Balance and surely that title now belongs to the SLYDE Kings’ terrific no. 5.
Heat 8 was a crowd pleaser of a different type with a race win at last for the plucky Danno Verge – the teenager from Shorne is hugely popular but has suffered some really bad luck in recent home meetings where notable victories have been denied him on the last lap of races. This time though there was to be no slip up and three more points were secured.
Heat 9 saw another prang involving Baseby who got past Halsey only to make the slightest but none the less catastrophic contact with the fence boards just after the second bend on the final lap coming to grief in a pile of wooden panels and dirt! His team mate Ayres was untroubled by the carnage behind him – on the way to four consecutive heat wins. With Shanes, Morley and Ayres reeling off wins and then Baseby finally joining the party with an excellent race win over Ritchings when the Dons man for the night was on double points, the only question was could young James complete a paid maximum. Heat 13 though proved to be unlucky for the Dorset teenager where missing the gate and ending up at the very back proved a stage too far even for his heroism of the night. Morley swept to a win to complete his maximum with Shanes taking a solidary point after Halsey had fallen.
Heat 14 showed just how brave these modern gladiators of the track are when Mogridge fell again and his runaway machine took out Jamie Couzins completely. There was concern when the youngster from Faversham stayed down prone on the track but he arose not only to take his place in the rerun but ride to a paid win behind Ayres. The bike took a lot of damage making it an expensive evening for Jamie who no doubt though would be heartened by recording his best score yet in a Kent race jacket.
Heat 15 was a crowd pleaser with Shanes and Ayres combining for the first ever time in a nominated riders race. Again Mogridge fell, bringing a premature halt to proceedings but confirming another 5-1 for the home side, an amazing double victory celebration by the show-boating duo, a 57-35 final score and securing the silverware for the Kent SLYDE Kings.
Next up is a return to City Gearboxes National League action when the King’s Lynn Young Stars visit Central Park on Whitsun Bank Holiday Monday (25.5) – that’s a 3pm start time.
Kent SLYDE Kings 57 Ben Morley 3 3 3 3 12 (M) Danno Verge 1 1 3 1 6 Aaron Baseby X 2' X 3 5+1 Danny Ayres 1 3 3 3 3 13 James Shanes 3 3 3 1 2' 12+1 Jamie Couzins 2' 1 0 2' 5+2 Adam Sheppard 3 F R 1 4
Wimbledon 35 Daniel Halsey 2 0 2 2 F 6 Chris Widman 0 2 1 2 1' 6+1 Darryl Ritchings 3 2 2, X 4!, 1 12 Arron Mogridge 2' X, 2 2 X X 6+1 R/R Niall Strudwick F 0 1' 0 1+1 Rob Watts 1 1' 1' 1 4+2