Stoke 20 Castleford 16 --mdl Sat May 25th

[Main Man]

• Stoke "Hartshill Cycles" Spitfires 20 Castleford "HG Aerospace Kings" 16
   
  Stoke ,Lee Payne 7,Shaun Tedham 5,Sam Ward 4,Charles Wallace 4>>>> 20
  Castleford, Max Clegg 10,Nathan Greaves 5,Sean Phillips 1,Callum Harris 0>>>> 16
   
  The Kings week of woes continued in to the meeting before a wheel had been turned on the track as Callum Harris discovered a fracture in the frame of his JHS and this resulted in his pit crew frantically setting up his Jawa for the meeting. Callum has only done 6 laps practice on this set up and was understandably less assured then he would have been but improved in his second ride before tangling with Sam Ward in his final ride in a first bend bunching incident .He was unable to take his place in the re-run due to extensive damage to both the bike and himself and was replaced by Max Clegg in the re-run. The activity pre-meeting at the opposite side of the Kings pits was no less frantic with Sean Phillips no.1 bike ruled out whilst warming up for the meeting so Sean also had to change bikes. His second bike was set up for a meeting at Rye House the following day and despite this being completely wrong for the Loomer Road track he battled away for a point which could easily have been 2 points but for an inconsiderate exclusion by referee David Dowling in his final ride. Sean came off through no fault of his own and took a nasty bang on his crash helmet leaving him with a bad headache. Captain for the night Max Clegg was in his useful impressive form and had a fantastic second ride hunting down the in form Lee Payne before making an inside pass on the 3rd bend and pulling away to win the heat. Payne had his revenge in the final heat passing Max on the final bend to take second place behind Kings race winner and new signing Nathan Greaves .Nay started the meeting with a still badly swollen hand, the result of coming off his bike earlier in the week while riding for his parent club Dudley Heathens .Everyone feared the worse when challenging for the lead in his opening race his steel shoe came off resulting in him taking a heavy fall on the inside of turn 2 while challenging Lee Payne for the lead. Fortunately despite the hand taking another hit Nathan showed great courage taking 5 points from his remaining two races dropping his only point to Stokes Shaun Tedham. Callum Harris took a heavy fall when he tangled with Sam Ward on the first bend of the penultimate race, riders required treatment from the paramedics and both riders were declared eligible for the re-run with the referee declaring first bend bunching incident with nobody to blame for the race stoppage. Unfortunately Callum had no time to make the necessary repairs in time to take his place in the re-run heat and team manager Pete Hibberd replaced him with Max Clegg who as ever was prepared to fight for the Kings cause Having yet to taste victory after their opening two league matches the Kings will be fighting for league points in their next meeting at Manchester's Belle Vue stadium on Monday June 3rd.Castleford will be hoping that this time luck will not desert them and they can take the league points from the Colts.