Diamonds go down to heavy loss at Bears
NEWCASTLE BTS Diamonds crashed to one of their biggestever defeats on Teesside last night when they were beaten 58-32 by Redcar Bears in a Championship Shield clash.
Guest Kevin Doolan from Berwick won the first and last races of the match, but, like the rest of the Diamonds, did little in between those successes.
Redcar, racing on home shale for the first time this season, were slow to settle after Newcastle took a 4-2 in the opener when skipper Ludvig Lindgren finished third to support Doolan’s win.
Diamonds reserve Ashley Morris led the Newcastle score chart at one stage after a lively performance that included winning the eighth race, which, with Doolan comfortably in third spot, gave the Byker boys their only other heat advantage.
Halfway through the match, the Bears led by only six points at 27– 21, but the next six races saw Redcar run riot with four maximum 5-1 wins and two 4-2s as the Diamonds were trumped in every race.
Things went from bad to worse for Newcastle when veteran Stuart Robson crashed in the 13th race, while trying an outside pass on Ben Barker, and was withdrawn from the rest of the match with a hand injury.
Thanks to Doolan’s terrific effort, rounding the last bend of the final race, no Redcar rider finished with maximum points as both Czech Matej Kus and German Tobias Busch tasted defeat by a Newcastle racer for the first time.
The sides meet again at Byker on Sunday (6.30pm). REDCAR (58): Tobias Busch 13, Matej Kus 11, Ben Barker 11, Paul Starke 9, Mikkel B Andersen 8, Theo Pijper 4, Jordan Stewart 2. NEWCASTLE (32): Kevin Doolan 9, Ashley Morris 8, Stuart Robson 5, Matthew Wethers 4, Ludvig Lindgren 3, Tero Aarnio 2, Carl Wilkinson 1.