Diamonds overcome Shielfield nightmare to see off the Bandits

AFTER a nightmare evening at Berwick 24 hours earlier, Newcastle BTS Diamonds managed to retain their unbeaten home record by seeing off the Bandits 47-43 in a thrilling return Championship match at Byker last night.

After performing a 57-32 demolition job on Saturday, the Bandits sensed they might well get some reward from their Tyneside trip and so it proved as they took a consolation league point home (for a defeat of six points or less).

Newcastle’s racers had to dig deep last night after misfortunes galore at Berwick where top pointsman Ashley Morris suffered three mechanical failures and scored just 1 point, the same tally as skipper Ludvig Lindgren and Carl Wilkinson.

Lindgren and Morris spent many hours yesterday building up bikes for the match and certainly in the case of Swedish skipper Lindgren it paid off as he notched 15 (paid 16) points from six races in a magnificent display.

Morris crashed in the first race but got his act together well to finish with eight (paid nine) from his other four races, including a terrific win in the penultimate race, with Wilkinson behind him in second spot to nudge Newcastle in front 43-41. Impressive guest Nico Covatti and Lindgren lined up for the final race against Aaron Summers (14 points out of a possible 15) and Nikolaj Busk Jakobsen and Lindgren took the chequered flag for the third time in a match-winning 4-2.