In front of an estimated crowd of 4,000 at Brandon and the Sky Sports cameras The Coventry Bees played host to the Poole Pirates in the first leg of the Elite League Grand Final.
Both sides tracked their full strength teams, but the weather or the previous two days had taken its tol on the track, which was very heavy across the early heats as the Bees took full advantage of the Pirates being uncomfortable with the conditions to set the early pace. This they did impressively with three 5-1 maximum heat wins on the first five races, although the track conditions did catch out Ben Barker in heat 3 who fell whilst in second place charging for the lead.
However the Pirates were not to be outdone and the following two heats were shared before Darcy Ward wqas nominated for a double popints scoring ride in heat 8. Holding second place behind Pawlicki Ward picked up drive and was sent out to the boggy outside of the track and fell, which handed the Bees a 4-2 heat win.
Heat 9 went the way of the Pirates as heat 10 saw another tactical double points socoring ride this time for Pedersen. Thankfully for Coventry Kasperzak made the gate and led the way so with Lewis Bridger coming home in third place the heat was shared as a 4-4, leaving the Bees with a 12 point advantage.
The racing so far had developed a racing line on the inside, but to the outside the dirt had piled up, and any rider getting into that area was in trouble.
A heat 11 drawn heat was followed in heat 12 with a 4-2 to the Pirates, who were trying to keep the gap down to what the Poole team manager stated on Sky as a 'manageable 8 points'.
Heat 13 provided a double exclusion as first Poole's Davey Watt fell at the first turn with his cut-off coming adrift from his bike and killing the engine. Seconds later Kasperzak was sent wide by Chris Holder and also fell. The referee deemed that Kasperzak's fall had caused him to put on the red lights and as such was excluded, but also as Watt's bike wasn't under power at the time the red lights went on, he too was excluded.
So after a poor start by Chris Harris the first time round, he made the gate and led the way for a Bees 3-2 win and the gap was now 11 points.
Heat 14 was drawn but there was further drama in heat 15 with Chris Harris and Poole's Pedersen side by side going into turn 3 when they both tangled and fell. The referee watched numerous replays and judged Pedersen to have been in front of Harris at the time, and therefore Harris had caused the fall. To the Coventry support this was the wrong decision as Pedersen had leaned heavily across Chris but the referee's mind was made up.
The re-run then saw Poole's Chris Holder excluded after a hard first turn saw him pushed out wide by Kasperzak and he fell. In the re-run Kasperzak rode a superb first corner to go around Pedersen to give the Bees a 51 points to 39 win on the night, but the second leg next monday night at Poole will be extremely tough indeed.
The Bees scorers tonight were: