Comets racing for league and cup success
Last updated 19:43, Thursday, 19 June 2008
WORKINGTON Comets finally laid their Birmingham bogey at the sixth attempt to maintain their interest in the Premier League title race.
With three former Workington riders included in only a six-strong Birmingham side, there was a feeling that the Comets could struggle to eke-out their first competitive win against the Brummies.
They got there comfortably in the end, although at the half-way stage only four points separated the two teams.
Five of the first eight heats were shared and the only difference was that Workington had two heat maximums to Birmingham’s one.
The first 4-2 of the meeting did not come until the ninth race and it was over the second half of the match that Workington pulled away.
They would have won more convincingly but Charles Wright lost a point in the penultimate race when he was excluded for putting both wheels over the white line after a wobble on the fourth turn.
Rusty Harrison was already clear for a six-point tactical ride win but Wright and Joe Haines would have reduced the heat advantage to 6-3 but for the reserve’s exclusion.
Then in the final race Workington were looking good for a 4-2 when Kauko Nieminen suffered a mechanical problem in the last 100 yards allowing Jason Lyons to win.
Workington had lost by five points at Birmingham the previous Wednesday so another tight match was expected, with some even predicting a Brummies success.
It had started with an emphatic 5-1 in the opener when James Wright, standing in for Poland-bound Daniel Nermark, raced clear from the gate and Finn Tomi Reima nipped into second with a smart move on bend two when Harrison went wide.
The next four heats were all square, but the fourth race shouldn’t have been. It took a brilliant ride from Carl Stonehewer to turn a Birmingham 5-1 into a 3-3.
Stonehewer may be in the autumn of his days but he is riding like a spring chicken at the moment and this was vintage stuff.
James Birkinshaw, one of the ex-Comets in the Brummies line-up, raced away to the front with Craig Watson and Stonehewer was struggling behind with John Branney.
But he gradually hauled himself back into the race and went inside Watson on the first bend of lap three before completing a memorable pass of Birkinshaw early in the final lap.
It was terrific stuff and not for the first time in his Workington career Stonehewer received a standing ovation from the grandstand.
Stonehewer’s other moment on a night which brought him nine points and three bonus, came in heat 13. This time James Wright got away but Stonehewer was last going into the second turn when he shot like a knife through butter between the Birmingham pair of guest Andrew Tully and Watson to grab second.
Stonehewer won the J Edgar and Son rider of the night award for his eye-catching performances although both James Wright (11) and skipper Kauko Nieminen (13) scored more points.
If there was another good performer on the night it was Reima who had two very good sounds and a win, before running a last in his fourth and final ride.
His aggressive starting and determination to get up there by the back straight on the first lap allowed him to come through behind James Wright on the first two occasions.
Then in heat eight he made it his own from the start with two excellent bends to take the race by the scruff of the neck and outpace both Birkinshaw and Tully.
Lyons was Birmingham’s best, winning four of his six starts and only being beaten twice, on both occasions by Nieminen.
Harrison, brought in as a guest for Lee Smart, also worked hard and the tactical ride win in heat 14 was the highlight of his night which helped him to a 10-point total, plus a bonus.
Workington 51: J Wright 11, Reima 7, Nieminen 13, Haines 4, Stonehewer 9, C Wright 5, Branney 2.
Birmingham 41: RR for Roynon, Tully 3, Lyons 16, Harrison 10, Watson 5, Smethills 3, Birkinshaw 4.
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