A point is not be sniffed at

A home draw against a nextto-bottom side might ordinarily beclassed as a disaster for a team chasing a play-off place, but in their current situation a point is not to be sniffed at for Panthers.

The city side boast the second-worst home record in the Premier League (only rock-bottom Scunthorpe have picked up fewer points on their own shale) and are also in a miserable run of only one win in seven meetings.

Of course, failing to beat struggling Redcar is hardly a strong advertisement of play-off credentials, but at least this one-off Panthers team, containing two incoming and two outgoing riders, didn’t lose again.

They looked set for a good night when the departing Ashley Morris teamed up with Craig Cook for a 5-1 in the opener and that was followedbya4-2inthenextrace whennewrecruitDannyHal- sey bagged his first (and only) point to date as reserve partner Zdenek Holub took the first of his two wins in a much-improved showing.

Butadelayforrepairwork on part of the track allowed Redcar to regroup and backto-back 5-1s left Panthers with a narrow deficit which was wiped out when skipper Ulrich Ostergaard led hometheback-again Anders Thomsen for a maximum of their own in heat five.

The two-point cushion was then preserved before being doubled when Cook took the flag in a heat 10 rerun with Morris having to limp round aboard a sick bike for the final lap to secure a point in his final race for the club.

But any thoughts of a steady Panthers run to victory fromthatpointweredismissedimmediatelyafterthe intervalwhenRedcarcaptain DavidBellegoandimpressive reserve Jye Etheridge bagged a5-1 over Nikolaj BuskJakobsen, whosefarewellperformance summed up his season.

Parityremainedfromthat momentonasBellegoproved to be a key manintheclosing stages by completing a hattrick of winswhentakingthe flag in heat 13 and a winnertakes-all (or neither-sidetakes-the-win, as it turned out) finale.

Zdenek Holub on his way to victory in heat two against Redcar.