Brave Wolves stay in touch

All looked lost on Friday night when the Eagles smacked in a heat 12 maximum which extended their lead to eight points with just three races remaining.

But a brace of 5-1s in reply from Swedish pair Peter Karlsson and Freddie Lindgren, bookending a crucial heat 14 win for Billy Hamill in which the lively Magnus Karlsson was only just edged out of the points, enabled the Parrys International Wolves to snatch both draw and bonus point.

In heat 13 Lindgren had to beat off a stern inside challenge from Mark Loram - contact was made - to stay with skipper PK.

But the heat 15 decider, with Wolves needing a 5-1 to draw, saw the pair race clear, celebrating with repeated punches of the air in front of the jubilant travelling fans on bend two.

The big question going into this clash was which Arlington Wolves side would turn up.

Would it be the determined outfit from April's league fixture, which, curiously, also needed a last-race 5-1 to draw but missed out by just two points?

Or would it be the side which provided just one race winner in July's Knockout Cup encounter and slid to a demoralising 17-point defeat?

After three races most people's money would have been on the latter.

Skipper Peter Karlsson took heat one in his most imperious manner, but Wolves promptly leaked two 5-1s to trail by eight.

However, there were signs in both those seemingly calamitous races that Wolves were more than up for this one.

Magnus Karlsson swopped places twice with Lewis Bridger in heat two while Billy Hamill's third place a race later hardly told the true story.

The American missed the gate but dispatched David Norris inside a lap and a half.

But as he lined up leader Dean Barker entering the first turn of the last lap he was pushed wide and Norris regained the place.

Six of the next eight heats were drawn as Wolves, with their top three of Peter Karlsson, Lindgren and Hamill all in splendid fettle, clawed their way back.

And on a night of superb racing on the excellent Arlington strip, the visitors cut their deficit with 4-2s in heats seven and eight.

Hamill burst past Mark Loram - Eagles' regular guest when Nicki Pedersen contests Grands Prix - down the back straight while Ronnie Correy, whose racing promised more points than it yielded, worked his way under the former world champion.

A glorious heat maximum looked on the cards until Correy went too wide exiting the last bend on lap three and Loram split the American duo.

Still, Wolves were back in it and Hamill took heat eight with some ease as the rider-replacement for virus-hit Christian Hefenbrock while Magnus Karlsson secured one of his five third places.

A Wolves run of five successive heat winners came to an end in heat 10 when Adam Shields - a rider, let us remember, who has broken his pelvis twice this season - produced a courageous burst round the boards to deny Hamill another victory.

Peter Karlsson then dropped his only point of the evening in the next race. Home reserve Cameron Woodward did his job in the first 30 metres, gating sufficiently well to shove Karlsson and allow Loram to go clear.

Heat 12, as feared, went the way of Barker and Bridger - but the Wolves' flame would not be doused.