The Bees were hoping to track a full 7 rider team tonight but a crash in Poland yesterday sadly left Olly Allen nursing a broken leg, and the best laid plans were put to the test for the Bees management with the rider replacement option havign to be used yet again. Hopefully Olly, like teammate Ben Barker, make a rapid recovery.
On to the match and the first heat was won in convincing style by one track wonder Peter Karlsson with Chris Harris trailing back in third place seemingly down on power. A 5-1 heat victory for the Wolves was quickly turned around by a super Bees reserve pairing ride in heat 2 to level the scores.
Heat 3 saw more Bees drama with Edward Kennett returning to the pits to change to his second bike after his first developed clutch problems, but this didn't stop him winding on the power to gain a hard fought second place to split the Wolves pairing.
Next up Rory Schlein faced Freddie Lindgren of Wolves, who has yet this season to be beaten by an opposing rider around Monmore Green, and it was this form that saw the record be maintained, another 4-2 to the wolves and the Bees now 4 points down.
A drawn heat 5 and then the Bees began to claw their way back by scoring two 4-2 heat wins to enter heat 9 all square at 24 points each, coutesy of reserve Jordan Frampton takign 3 of the rider replacement/reserve rides in addition to his programmed 4 on the night.
With the new league points scoring for this season allocating a point for the away team if they lose the match by 6 points or less, the Bees challenge was to keep as close to the Wolves tails at least and try to nick the heat advantages when they could.
This was shown by their efforts as heading into heat 13 the Wolves led by 4 points.
However heat 12 is always a meeting of the top guns from either team and saw Chris Harris and Rory Schlein try to prevent Lindgren from maintaining is remarkable reord, and halt the progress of Wolves captain Karlsson. Sadly it was the Wolves pairing that made the all important start and simply pulled away with ease to open the gap to 8 points.
Heat 14 saw Skornicki for Wolves excluded from the heat for a lap 3 dive underneath Jordan Frampton and causing Jordan to fall. The Sky Sports replays clearly showed Skornicki's rear wheel hit Jordans front, yet the comical sight of the Wolves team manager saying it was the wrong decision was played to the nation.
The re-run saw the Bees holding on to a 5-1 advantage until the last lap when Jordan ran wide on turn 2 allowing the Wolf Ty Proctor to steal second place and effectively end the Bees hopes of the additional point.
Into the final heat and once again the Wolves heat 13 pairing took to the track and they duly scored a final heat maximum over Schlein and Kennett to record a hard fought 50-40 victory.
The Bees scorers tonight were:
1. Chris Harris 1, 3, 2, 0 = 6
2. Ricky Wells 0, 0, 1, 1* = 2 + 1
3. Rider Replacement: JF, JF, JF, EK
4. Ed Kennett 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 1 = 13
5. Rory Schlein 2, 3, 2, 1, 0 = 8
6. Filip Sitera 2*, 0, 1, 0 = 3 + 1
7. Jordan Frampton 3, 0, 1*, 3, f/ex, 0, 1 = 8 + 1
Next up for the Bees are the Lakeside Hammers on Thursday evening at Brandon, start time is the usual 8pm.