SPEEDWAY by Alan Goodman

News from Coventry Buildbase Bees and Coventry Storm
Alan GoodmanAlan Goodman
Alan Goodman

It has been an up and down weekend for Coventry Buildbase Bees. For after recording their biggest home win of the season against Lakeside on Friday night, 24 hours later in the return, they conceded 60 points for only the second time in this campaign.

The Lakeside track has always been difficult to master and the younger members of the team really struggled against a team who have won all their home matches convincingly.

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There was little joy for Storm on Monday after going down by 38-52 at Cradley.

Bees 54, Lakeside 39

Bees were without Josh Bates, who was on World under-21 Qualifying business and brought in Adam Roynon as reserve cover. The visitors were at full strength.

Krzysztof Kasprzak made the start to heat one but former Bee Andreas Jonsson forced a way by at the start of lap two. With Piotr Swiderski taking third, the Hammers took an early lead.

Lewis Kerr won a shared heat two before Danny King took heat three. This heat was also shared after Chris Harris retired with machine problems.

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Kacper Woryna led heat four but Lewis Bridger fell on turn three with James Sarjeant having to avoid him. In the rerun Kerr took his chance to record a second win despite a good effort by Woryna.

Jason Garrity and Roynon combined well to take maximum points from heat five and set Bees on their way.

Woryna led heat six for three laps but Jonsson went underneath on the Coventry turn causing the young Pole to fall. Jonsson was excluded and the race awarded 5-1 to Bees.

Kasprzak and Harris repeated the dose in the next before a superb ride by Sarjeant in heat eight saw him pass all three riders on the first turn and join Woryna in taking the fourth 5-1 of the night to give Bees a 31-17 halfway lead.

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Yet another maximum came in the next through Garrity and Roynon before Jonsson was given a tactical ride for double points in heat ten. He duly obliged with the six points but with Bees taking the minor placings, no real damage was done.

Richard Lawson led heat eleven but Garrity clipped his back wheel on the Coventry turn and took a nasty tumble. In the restart a poor gate by Kasprzak left him trailing the visiting pair for the whole four laps.

Sarjeant briefly led heat twelve only to see Kerr go by to record his third race win of the evening.

Kasprzak and Harris took advantage of a first turn mistake by Jonsson to take the points in heat thirteen.

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King won heat fourteen with Woryna falling after a good race with Lawson.

Jonsson atoned for his previous mistake by winning a shared heat fifteen to make the final score 54-39 to Bees.

King and Kasprzak showed their recent improvement by joint top scoring with eleven points each. Harris was slightly below par but still managed a paid eight. Credit must also go to Roynon whose efforts earned him a paid ten return.

Bees’ scorers: King, Kasprzak 11, Sarjeant 8(1), Woryna 7(1), Roynon 6(4), Garrity 6, Harris 5(3).

Lakeside 60, Bees 33

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Bees had Leigh Lanham guesting for Josh Bates and had further team problems when Jason Garrity pulled out with injuries received in his crash the previous evening. Rider replacement was operated in his absence.

Lakeside set the tone for the evening with Jonsson and Swiderski taking an opening 5-1.

The same followed in the reserves heat two but King and Harris shared the points in heat three. King rode a good race but just could not find the extra to get ahead.

Another 5-1 followed and with Bees already twelve behind, King was given a tactical ride when replacing Garrity in heat five. After a battle with Swiderski he took the six points but Woryna was finding things difficult and trailed in well behind.

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Harris rode a good race to win a shared heat six, but Jonsson and Nilsson took another max in a heat seven which saw King lose second to The Lakeside skipper.

Yet another max left the halfway score at 37-17 to the homesters.

Sarjeant was a faller in heat nine and although Lanham managed second, Bees went further behind.

Kasprzak finally got to grips with the conditions to win heat ten before King turned in a good ride to hold out Jonsson in heat eleven.

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There was slight controversy in heat twelve when Sarjeant fell after clashing with Robert Mear. The referee decided he was the cause of the stoppage and was excluded. Woryna offered no opposition in the rerun.

Bees looked set to get a heat win in heat thirteen when Kasprzak and Harris made the start. Harris worked hard to get KK away but got caught up in the traffic himself and came in last.

Bridger won a shared heat fourteen after the Bees pair got in each other’s way and Lakeside finished off as they had started to make the final score 60-33.

King was by far the Bees best rider with Kasprzak managing two good rides. Harris was slightly subdued, possibly due to recent off track events.

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Bees’ scorers: King 13(1), Kasprzak 8, Harris 4(1), Lanham 4, Sarjeant 3, Woryna 1.

Cradley 52 Storm 38

Storm used rider replacement for the still injured Liam Carr and had Kyle Roberts as a guest for Jamie Halder.

Storm made a good start and after three heats led by 10-8.

The scores were levelled in the next after Cradley took a 4-2. They followed this up with maximum points to go into a four-point lead.

It was then stalemate with the next six heat shared leaving Cradley still leading by four.

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Unfortunately Storm could make no headway and two 5-1’s and a 4-2 gave Cradley a convincing 52-38 win.

Storm scorers: Dan Greenwood 11, Martin Knuckey 9(2), Conor Dwyer 7(4), Ryan Terry-Daley 7, Callum Walker 4(2), Kyle Roberts 0.

Preview

Bees have another testing weekend when they take on Belle Vue in Bank Holiday fixtures. The Aces have a strong side which includes GP star Matej Zagar, former Bees skipper Scott Nicholls and his fellow GB International, Craig Cook.

The first match takes place at Brandon on Friday with a 7.30pm start and then it is on to the ‘Aces’ new stadium which has recovered from a problematic start and now produces some exciting racing. This match is on Monday with a midday start.

On Sunday Storm are away to Mildenhall.

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