Speedway: Diamonds in narrow win against Rye House

Newcastle Diamonds v Rye House Rockets
Mon 07 Aug 2011
Newcastle Stadium
Premier League
by Lawrence Heppell

The Newcastle Diamonds and last night's visitors to Brough Park, Rye House had already ridden some tight meetings on Tyneside and this Premier League (second phase) event was no different.

A generally mundane opening left the scores tied 9-9 after the opening three races before Tyson Nelson took a solid win in the fourth over a determined effort from Claes Nedermark to call a visitor's 2-4 with the score moving on to 11-13. The home side regained the lead, with an added extra in Heat Six when, with Steve Boxall out of the race with engine failure, Derek Sneddon and guest Jason Lyons out in front, Luke Bowen fell and remounted to complete the race, but the referee made the most incredulous of decisions to exclude Bowen for "not making a bona fide attempt to race" despite the fact the rider could well have picked up an unbeknown injury resulting in his slower efforts, and as it happened the rider never raced again all night. The resultant 5-0 put Newcastle 19-16 up, whist a great win for Chris Neath in Heat Seven over Nedermark, again putting in a great chase, formed a Rockets' 2-4 narrowing the gap to one solitary point.

The referee confounded sense and sensibility again when, at the start of Heat Eight, and with all four riders at the tapes, he put the red lights on and excluded Richie Worrall for exceeding the two minute time allowance. With Newman in for the excluded Worrall, and another win for Nelson the heat remained tied 3-3, whilst returnee Rene Bach proved he his match fitness is still below his competitors with a full season under their belts as he first let Nelson through in Heat Nine, followed by former Diamond, Boxall as the Rockets hit home a maximum 1-5, re-taking the lead once again 25-28. In a stonewall "all riders back" situation on bend one of Heat 11, the referee took himself off more Newcastle Christmas card lists by excluding the fallen Newman ordering a three-man rerun, in which Nedermark looked well out of sorts with Nelson going from third to first to win ahead of his own partner Jordan Frampton to hit another 1-5 over the Diamonds, with the score moving on to 30-35.

With Nelson falling on the second lap and Newman out in from in Heat 12, Ritchie Hawkins made a magnificent effort to pass Worrall, but the Newcastle reserve made an equally magnificent effort to block and extend his run to lead and win a fantastic home maximum and tighten the score to one point again, in Rye's favour with three races left on the race card. A fourth win for Lyons in Heat 13, with Nedermark slipping into a comfortable third put the Diamonds back into the lead by one, 39-38 as the tension grew with heats running out.

Nelson was down again in Heat 14 and not happy with Bach whom he thought was responsible for his fall in a 3-3 leaving the match beautifully poised at 42-41 to the Diamonds with one race to go. A perfect maximum for Lyons with a massive fifth race win in Heat 15 secured the match win for the Diamonds, and even with Nedermark at the back the final score just took a thrilling win 45-44.

Team manager George English said: "It was touch and go for a few races tonight, but with Jason Lyons riding better now than ever before, our favourite guest performer really made sure the win was going to be ours despite some interesting refereeing decision."