Ruddy Hell!!

Robert Ksiezak - It's not out of focus! It's called 'speedblurring'.............

Ok, it's been coming for a while I suppose, but it still took a while to sink in. What a skelping that was. A 3-3 and a 2-4 in the opening heats gave no indication of what was to come. Lee looked as hungry as ever in the opening heat and Josh looked like he was shaping up to take the lead in the 2nd heat until Jamie Smith locked up in front of him and Josh had to take avoiding action, ending up on his arse in the pit entrance.

From then on it was shockingly easy for the Tigers. The slightly altered track shape will get blamed by many a visiting rider, but dammit!, we need an advantage at home, and theres nowt in the rules to say you can't have a square track ;) Purists can bang on all they like about a lack of passing and close racing but success pulls in punters as much as 'quality of racing'. Sad but true. In an ideal world you'd have both.

The promotion have prided themselves upon having one of the fairest tracks in the league, and I'm sure they would quite liked to have kept it that way, but they are mere tenants at Ashfield, and the needs of the football club are such that they require a slightly wider football pitch. It's worked out alright just now as far as results are concerned. Again, it's a problem we'd have been happy to contend with three months ago when things looked really grim.

Mark Lemon leads Mitchell and Anders through the 4th bend

Rider Ratings:

Magnus Karlsson - A decent guest appearance from the Scunthorpe rider. A poor first heat, but he soon dialled himself in and took eight from the next three rides.

Lee - Looks almost invincible at home. We were all worried he'd get a maximum and end up putting half the time on the injury table when they gave him his bumps ;) (just kidding big man!!)

Robert - Like a rocket out of the gate and only denied a full maximum by Kevin Doolan. This season has been the making of Robert. A bit more consistency and he'll soon be as dependable as Shane was.

Trent - Over the last month or two he's really hit some form. Today was no exception and it was a joy to see him romp off with a paid maximum.

Josh - Will be a tad disappointed, but what looked to be at least a 2nd place in heat 2 until he hit the deck (not his fault in my opinion), would have taken him to six. Only really out of it in heat 8.
Anders - Had a tough afternoon. Picked up his first (I think) Ashfield heat win, but also took a hard one into the 1st bend boards. He's holding his own at No5 and he'll always score points.

Mitchell - A great afternoon for Mitch. Three 2nd places (one of them a paid win), and a third place. He's getting there. I'm actually starting to enjoy his riding.

Sunday's scorecard

Josh Grajczonek