Newcastle Diamonds 55
Berwick Bandits 39
(Premier League)Top Scorers
Newcastle Diamonds - Mark Lemon 13, Carl Wilkinson 12 2
Berwick Bandits - Sebastian Alden 15, Aaron Summers 10
The big local derby of the season hit Brough Park with the Berwick Bandits visiting the Newcastle Diamonds who had the upper hand from the off in a physical battle.
The visitors had to race without รข€˜flu-victim Ricky Ashworth with Redcar's Aaron Summers deputising as a guest whilst the Bears also had an influence in the home side with Carl Wilkinson taking the rides of the injured Richie Worrall at number seven.
With Claes Nedermark well out in front in Heat One Stuart Robson found some grip from nowhere and shot round Berwick's guest Summers to take an easy home 5-1, but Heat Two came to a juddering halt coming off the second bend when Steve Worrall hit a patch of drive, lifted and slewed right into Jason King taking both into the fence at speed.
Worrall was stretchered off into an ambulance with a broken left leg whilst King also took a trip in the same ambulance to hospital with a broken right arm and both sides were down to one reserve with only one race completed heaping the pressure on the Liam Carr and Carl Wilkinson who now faced seven rides each.
Heat Three ended abruptly too with Lee Complin trying a stunning outside run round Mark Lemon in second ran into the fallen leader of the race, David Bellego with the Frenchman being excluded from the race, but the referee awarded the heat a 5-1 to the Diamonds instead of the expected 4-2 as Complin was clearly in second place at the time of the stoppage and exclusion which should have netted the Bandit two points not one.
A shared race in four was repeated in five with Summers jetting hard round both Mark Lemon and Christian Henry off bend two to take the score 19-10.
Newcastle took a hard grip on proceedings in the sixth and seventh, and going into Heat Eight the Bandits had still resisted the temptation to use a tactical ride for double points with 16-year-old Carr coming in for the injured King and Robin Aspegren with the Swede racing hard round the outside of Nedermark off bend two to take a brilliant win.
With the score now 31-16 Alden was finally nominated as a tactical ride in Heat Nine but despite an incredible effort behind Lemon the three points went to the Newcastle skipper with Alden taking a doubled four in a shared 4-all taking the score to 35-20.
Going into the 11th Summers was nominated for Berwick's second and final tactical ride in which Wilkinson shot round the field to lead but on the second lap the guest reserve went too wide off bend two and hit the fence causing him to cartwheel down the back straight and land in front of the rest of the field causing riders to avoid the stricken man.
Aspegren avoidance resulted in him turning sharp left and crashing in the middle of the centre green, but thankfully he and Wilkinson were fine with Newcastle's man excluded from the re-run in which Summers turned hard right across the nose of Lindgren coming off bend two of the second lap severely impeding the Diamond to score a solid six points in a Bandit's 2-7 which tightened the match score to 40-30.
Newcastle continued to turn the screws and despite some excellent racing from Alden, the fastest man on the night, took an easy 20-point victory.
Team manager George English said: "It was an all-action match, no doubt there, and we're delighted to have taken a good win over our local rivals, but it's a big problem now as we have to find a replacement for Steve Worrall who has, like his brother, broken a fibula and will have to sit out a good deal of time on the sidelines.
"I would like to send Newcastle Speedway's best wishes for a fast recovery from both Steve and indeed Berwick's Jason King as both were tangled up in what was a pure racing incident. Let's hope we see both back on their bikes as soon as possible."
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