Berwick Bandits v Newcastle Diamonds: Sat 20 Aug 2011: Shielfield Park
Premier League by Lawrence Heppell
Catching Berwick on the back of a disappointing home defeat in a nerve tingling local derby is never a good place to be for visitors to Shielfield Park as the Newcastle Diamonds discovered last night with Sebastian Alden becoming the fastest Bandit ever, shattering the track record in Heat 10.
The second big local derby between the Berwick Bandits and Newcastle Diamonds in three weeks got off to a shock start for the visiting Tynesiders as Jason Lyons and Derek Sneddon shot from the gate at an alarming rate to score a big 1-5 over the home side despite a fine last gasp effort from Alden, just missing the pass.
Jade Mudgway recovered from a frightening second bend to roar round Kyle Newman on bend four of the second lap to win the heat advantage for the Bandits hauling them back to within two of the Diamonds, 5-7.
Kozza Smith took a majestic win in Heat Three but Rene Bach raced a magnificent opening lap to reel in and pass the usually un-passable Josef Franc and got right up with Smith too until he made an error in the deep stuff wide on bend two in the 4-2 that levelled the meeting 9-9.
Newman jumped the start in Heat Four, but took no advantage and ended up at the rear at the end of the first lap as Lee Complin and Mudgway shot ahead to score an untroubled home maximum pushing the Bandits 14-10 up.
As shared Heat Five, won dominantly by Lyons, with Smith and Franc passing Sneddon, Alden and Ludvig Lindgren pushed the Bandits two more ahead by holding Newman at bay in second and again relegating Sneddon to the rear with the score now at 21-15.
Complin looked set for second place behind Bach in the seventh, but a last bend surge of grip and power shot the Berwick skipper round the high and wide line to nick the magnificent win on the line in a shared 3-3.
The six point lead was preserved in Heat Eight with another split race with the score at 27-21, whilst a pair of lightening starts from Berwick's Swedish pairing in Heat 10 gave Berwick a very welcome 5-1, with Alden's time taking a stunning half second off the old track record held by Chris Harris, setting a new time of 63.3 seconds.
Lyons came out as a tactical ride in Heat 11 for double points, but Complin shot wide round both Diamonds to lead well, with the result looking a confirmed 3-5, but Sneddon, with Mitch Davey on his tail inexplicably shut off with 20 metres to go and lost his point on the line in the 4-4 to move the score on to 41-27.
Smith led Heat 12 well as Mudgway forced his way inside Joe Haines on bend three of the first lap and then went round Newman to form a sensational Bandit?s maximum to give the Bandits a solid 46-28 lead with three races left to run.
Alden was again looking set for one very quick time in Heat 13, leading Lyons well, but a completely blown engine on bend four of the last lap ended his race in disappointment and a huge repair bill in the Diamonds? 2-4, but the highly entertaining match was in the hands of the Bandits who took all three league points.
Newcastle's team manager George English said: "This wasn't the best time to tackle Berwick, as they had a team determined to make up for the previous week's failing, and they also had a side dialled perfectly to the grippy surface, as shown with their number one taking a track record.
"Jason Lyons again was a superb guest for us and only dropped one point all night whilst Rene Bach was finding the big grippy track a bit of a pull on his recently repaired shoulder injury and was suffering a degree of pain which resulted in his scoring being curtailed to a degree so there'll be more than a whiff of revenge in the air when the Bandits come back to Brough Park for the return."
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