Certainly at the start, The Bees were much sharper than their opponents racing to a 10 point lead after the first 4 races, with Chris 'Bomber' Harris winning heat 4 in the fastest time of the season at Brandon timed at 58.4 seconds.
Thinsg went awry in the following race where the Wolves team manager put their No 1 rider Peter Karlsson in as a tactical ride, meaning if he finished ahead of a Coventry rider his points would count for double. He did this by winning the heat and with his team mate grabbing 3rd place The Bees lead was suddenly down to 5 points.
However, The Bees strength came through again with 2 successive heat 5-1's giving them a 13 point advantage.
Towards the end of the meeting, The Bees lead slipped a little, as much to do with points being thrown away whilst in scoring positions as much as Wolves attempts to keep the gap down as much as possible. Despite this though, The Bees ran out victors 52 points to Wolves 41.
Scott Nicholls top scored for Coventry with 13 points and 1 bonus from his 5 rides, with Rory Schlein weighing in with 12. Bomber suffered engine problems late on in the evening limiting his score to 7.
Harris & Nicholls
The away 'leg' of this Elite league match is at Wolverhampton on Monday 3rd September and hopefully these 11 points will be sufficient to see The Bees gain the bonus point at the very least, which could be invaluable as the League season nears the play-offs where finishing in 1st or 2nd place guarantees a home semi-final match.
On Monday evening, The Bees visit Belle Vue and then next Friday Reading are the visitors to Coventry.
After tonights match the top of the Elite League table now looks like this:
| M | W | D | L | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | AP | Tot | ||||||
| 1 | Swindon | 25 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 1320.5 | 979.5 | 39 | 7 | 46 | ||||
| 2 | Poole | 24 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 1198 | 1001 | 33 | 6 | 39 | ||||
| 3 | Coventry | 23 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 1130 | 960 | 33 | 6 | 39 | ||||
| 4 | Peterborough | 22 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 1056 | 933 | 28 | 4 | 32 |