Glasgow Tigers v Isle of Wight Islanders Heat 13

Bunching incident on the 1st bend

Glasgow Tigers v Isle of Wight Islanders Heat 14

Ross Brady takes the heat win from Tero Aarnio and a sick sounding Lee Dicken, giving Glasgow the two valuable league points in a match they never really looked like losing.

Sadly, this was one of the least exciting heats I've filmed. Heat 15 was a cracker, but what can you do? Any clairvoyants out there?

Glasgow Tigers v Isle of Wight Islanders Heat 8

Ross Brady and Robert Ksiezak head home for a 5-1 to Glasgow, Cory Gathercole & Chris Holder in 3rd & 4th

Glasgow Tigers 51 Isle of Wight Islanders 42

Aarnio leads Stoney in heat 15
Stonehewer heads to heat 15 victory, Aarnio gives chase.
Stoney takes the plaudits.

Great performance all round from the team. Stoney made an excellent stand in for Shane and Ross Brady produced an astonishing performance to pull in 16 points. Bring on the Brummies!

Report and scorecard can be found here.

Glasgow Tigers v Isle of Wight Islanders

Ross on his way to another heat win
Ross leads Stoney
Andrew Bargh (I Think)
Trent Leverington
Robert Ksiezak

Glasgow Tigers v Isle of Wight Islanders

Gary Beaton rides out an Ashfield duststorm

Robert splits the Islanders

Trent leads Aarnio, Phillips and Beaton

Stoney tries the inside line on Jason Bunyan

Robert Ksiezak

Glasgow Tigers v Isle of Wight Islanders

Ross Brady
Lee Dicken, Tero Aarnio & carl Stonehewer
Same Heat, a lap later.
Ross leads Trent
Ross, nicely balanced through the 3rd bend.

Back In Time.

Got these shots from my good friend Clairwil the other day, from the meeting against the Islanders last season. Her 'point & click' digital camera wasn't really up to taking action shots, but she did manage to come away with a few excellent, atmospheric snaps. I really like the way some of the cheaper cameras produce odd effects in the light.

Pics, clips and waffle on todays meeting against the Isle of Wight will be posted up tomorrow.

Cheers!

Glasgow Tigers v Newcastle Diamonds Heat 3

Heat 3 - James Grieves from the tapes. Josh Grajczonek comes to grief on the 1st & 2nd laps to shift him down to fourth.

Heat 14 - Ross Brady gates and Josh follows him through, but they both go for the same yard of shale and Josh has to come out of the throttle briefly, allowing King and Stoddart through. Ross loses out on the final lap to King to give the Diamonds a 4-2 heat advantage.

Glasgow Tigers 44 Newcastle Diamonds 46

Robert Ksiezak out front in Heat 15, Christian Henry in pursuit.
About to start the final lap and Robert looks over his shoulder hoping to see his team mate behind him............... James Grieves would come within half a bike length of Christian Henry, but it wasn't enough and three well deserved points went to Newcastle.

Another home defeat, another long walk home.....................

I'll run through the riders and do my best to keep it brief.

James Grieves - 13 Points - Great stand in for Shane. Four wins and a third in the final heat. Didn't get the start he wanted in Heat 15, but chased Christian Henry all the way to the flag. Cheers James, more of that tomorrow night?

Trent Leverington - 5 Points - Unfairly penalised in his 2nd heat I thought, though a haul of five is lower than usual for Trent. Possibly still feeling the effects of last weeks crash.

Josh Grajczonek - 3 Points - Like last week, he maybe ought to have scored more, but there was little to find fault with, considering he was riding at a very tough berth in the team. On for a 2nd place in his first outing, he twice got the third/fourth bend combo wrong and ended up at the back. In heat five, he was back on form with an excellent 2nd place to clinch a Tigers 5-1, keeping Jo franc behind him in the process. Heat 14 saw him get inadvertently pushed wide by his team mate Ross Brady and lose two places to the Newcastle pairing of King & Stoddart. It's great to watch him ride, he has that neatness and balance that I love to see, much as I'm a fan of the 'round the boards' riders like.........

Lee Dicken - 5 Points - Not a bad outing at No2 for Lee. Great heat win on his own after Trent got excluded, and another couple of thirds, proving the big man isn't quite as out of place in the 1-5 as I thought he'd be.

Robert Ksiezak - 11 Points - What a turnaround from last week. Three heat wins and two third places. Some excellent gating and once he's out there, when things are going well for him, he never looks like getting caught. More of this would be great, everyone knows what he's capable of, and I have a sneaking suspicion he does too..................

Ross Brady - 7 Points - My eyes bugged out when I saw his total points. SEVEN!!!? He picked up four early on then looked out of sorts at the back in the next two. There was one heat in particular, can't remember if it was 2 or 4, but he looked extremely uncomfortable and only just held on for 2nd place by the skin of his teeth. In his final heat, he looked like a rider possessed. Jumped the first start, then got a rocket in the 2nd, though in the process he ended up taking the wide line and compromised Josh who got swamped by the two Newcastle boys. Ross was nipped on the line for the win by Jason King, giving Newcastle the upper hand for the final heat.

Mitchell Davey - Took an absolutely awful tumble in heat 7. Not entirely sure what went wrong, but it seemed like his bike seized, spitting him over the bars. He's currently being held over night in hospital for observation and we're awaiting news on his injuries. A speedy recovery to the boy and hope to see him again, though one can only conclude that things just aren't working out for him. I'd rather not say any more, as it'll seem like I'm kicking him while he's down. Let's just say that circumstances have more than a little to do with his nightmare start, but it'll take guts to come back from this latest setback.

Newcastle - Pepe Franc always impresses me, love the way he rides. Shaun Stoddart did a great job at reserve and almost certainly can take a great deal of credit for Newcastle's win. Considering they had no George Stancl and the added aggravation of not having Ben Powell (Now an 'ex-Diamond' according to manager George English), the Diamonds victory must have been all the sweeter.

Finally, according to Stewart Dickson, Shane Parker will be out for a couple of months at least. Get well soon Shane! In the meantime, it looks like guest riders all the way. Even if Stewart decides not to make any changes in the coming months, it looks like things will be pretty 'interesting' for the foreseeable future.

The score card for the meeting can be found here. A full meeting report will be up soon on the same website.

Glasgow Tigers v Newcastle Diamonds

Josef Franc leads Shaun Stoddart, Lee Dicken and Ross Brady in Heat 8
James Grieves again
Shaun Stoddart had an excellent meeting. Riding at No7, he managed to rack up an excellent 11 points.
Josef 'Pepe' Franc on his way to one of four heat wins for the Diamonds
James Grieves, guesting for the injured Shane Parker, prepares to overtake Christian Henry to give Glasgow a vital heat advantage in Heat 13. James recorded an excellent 13 point haul, with four wins.

Apologies for the rather grainy shots. The light was almost non existent and the 'sports' mode on my camera didn't always do it's job. I'll be fiddling about to see if theres anything I can do, as the photos, whilst never up to pro standard, are something I try to take a bit of pride in.

Glasgow Tigers v Newcastle Diamonds

James Grieves & Josh Grajczonek
Josh Grajczonek
James Grieves
Lee Dicken's unique cornering style
Robert Ksiezak. Ok, it's not exactly in frame, but I like the shot.

Glasgow Tigers v Edinburgh Monarchs Heat 6

Shane Parker goes on a tactical ride from 15m. Robert Ksiezak fails to keep Matthew Wethers in 2nd place, leaving Shane too much to do when he finally found his way through. Good riding from Andrew Tully to keep Shane at the back for over two laps.

Am I alone in preferring the Blogger video player? Embedded Youtube stuff is really ugly. It also takes an age to buffer and the blurring on the full size screen can make the clips unwatchable sometimes. On the other hand, Youtube is a good way to get clips out to the world at large.

What I was thinking was that I should reverse the way I'm doing things. This weekends clips will go up exclusively on Tigers At The Tapes, using the Blogger clip player, then I'll post up the best or most interesting clip on Youtube later in the week.

Any thoughts on the matter are welcome, though I'm really just 'thinking aloud' here.

Cheers!

2nd Half Action (27/4/08)

Dale Lamb
James McBain
Gary Beaton
Unknown
Dale Lamb

As ever, any help with naming unidentified riders would be appreciated............

Tigers v Monarchs Youtube Clips

From the weekend. Couple of hi-lights



Aaron Summers shows how it's done with an astonishing double pass at the start of the last lap in Heat 14



Shane Parker takes one of four heat wins. This one was Heat 9.