Monarchs go for top spot at Ipswich
Hitmen visit brings tester for fringe riders
The Edinburgh Parsons Peebles Monarchs are gearing for top spot in the SGB Championship table when they travel to Ipswich tonight (Thursday).
The Armadale- based side weren’t in action last week and that allowed both Ipswich and Scottish rivals Glasgow Tigers to jump above them in the table.
However, the Monarchs have three meetings in hand over the Witches and will be looking for revenge after suffering defeat in their last trip to Suffolk in June.
The hosts comfortably won 50-39 on that occasion and boast a perfect home record from 12 fixtures this term.
The Monarchs, led by captain Sam Masters, were annoyed with themselves for not picking up at least a losing bonus point during that meeting on what was a frustrating evening.
Rectifying that this time round will go a long way to confirming a place in the end of season play-offs for the Armadale Stadium outfit.
There’s no league home action this week for the Monarchs but they have arranged a challenge match with National League side Buxton Hitmen.
The action begins at the usual Armadale Stadium Friday night time of 7.30pm.
The action returns to Armadale on Friday following the traditional week off for the Cardiff Grand Prix.
However, there will be something slightly different on show at the Armadale Stadium.
With the club having already raced 13 of their 18 home fixtures, a gap in the fixture list arose and has been filled with a challenge match against National League side Buxton Hitmen.
Regarding the match, Monarchs’ co-promoter John Campbell said: “I’m very pleased to welcome the Buxton Hitmen here for a National League style challenge.
“My thanks go to Jayne Moss, one of my colleagues in my Conference League days of the Dale Devils for bringing a representative team here to give us a match.
“There are two very good reasons for this match. Firstly, it gives Dale Lamb and Kev Whelan the chance to see exactly where they are at the moment in terms of National League standard and gives others an idea as to what is required to get into competitive racing.
“However, the much more important reason is to give the three Parsons Peebles Monarchs riders in action [ Josh Pickering, Mitchell Davey and Max Clegg] the chance to win races at Armadale.
“We have reached a critical point in the SGB Championship season and our minimum target has got to be to win all our home matches. To do that we need more than our top three riders to be winning races.” It will be a strange sight for the Parsons Peebles Monarchs faithful as Clegg will actually be riding for the opposition on Friday night.
The Yorkshireman is a regular member of the Hitmen’s septet and the teams felt that the chance to get more youngsters into the meeting meant it was preferable for Clegg to race with the National League side, who sit at the foot of the table.
The Monarchs promotion also wish to pass their thanks on to Brian Sands and Pro Bowl for agreeing to sponsor the meeting as well as Brian Little of Tweedside Commercials who is providing the riders with fuel and tyres.
There was no action for the club last week, while the Monarchs pair of Sam Masters and Erik Riss were unable to contest the Championship Pairs event in Somerset on Friday night with the heavy rain putting paid to that event.
A new date has yet to be announced for the meeting.