Wolves ending on a low note

Coming third of three in their home leg was bad enough, although there were at least some mitigating circumstances in the two chains shed by Billy Hamill along with Freddie Lindgren's fall.

But the margin of last night's heavy defeat was a bitter pill to swallow, despite being widely anticipated in the injury-enforced absence of Peter Karlsson who has been particularly imperious around Foxhall Heath this season.

His late removal from the equation left Wolves' management with restricted options in the guest department. That's no reflection on Arena Essex's Henning Bager, whose effort could not be faulted. But while the spirit was willing, the average was weak.

Nor could Wolves look with any confidence to Hamill, who left the meeting a worried man after the non-performance of what he had regarded as his best engine.

The problem was graphically underlined in his last race. Hamill made a trademark bustling gate to lead off the second bend only to find himself fourth within half a lap as Adam Shields raced between the Wolf and partner Christian Hefenbrock.

That left, as so often in these final weeks of the campaign, Lindgren as Ronnie Correy faded after a sprightly opening ride. Lindgren provided Wolves' solitary race win in heat eight, making an urgent start and successfully repelling a determined pursuit by Eastbourne's David Norris.

But his evening took a turn for the worse two heats later when Ipswich's Kim Jansson overcooked it coming out of turn two on the final lap. Jansson, on a 5-1 with guest Scott Nicholls, clipped the fence and fell into Lindgren's path. It was one of those awful, seemingly inevitable, slow-motion smashes as the Wolves man tried unsuccessfully to pick a path past the wreckage only to hit Jansson's machine and somersault over the handlebars.

Thankfully both riders were more or less unscathed although Jansson did not take his final ride.

Lindgren may well wish he had followed suit. He bumped shoulders with Nicki Pedersen coming out of the gate - nothing untoward, just the usual first bend contest - and fell. It looked a nailed-on all four back, but it was Lindgren who copped the blame from referee Barbara Horley and was excluded.

So Chris Kerr - amazingly, by my count the FIFTH rider from promoter Chris Van Straaten's Premier League Redcar to don the Wolves bib this season - was left alone to face the inimitable Pedersen and teenage hotshot Lewis Bridger in the rerun.

Pedersen was swiftly away and Bridger rode a controlled bend to overhaul Kerr only to unveil an equally uncontrolled one immediately afterwards that allowed the American through on the inside.

Bridger, racing blood up - don't miss him at Monmore on Monday in the British under-18 championship - gave chase but slid off wildly on the first bend of lap two.

Lap two or not, this was a race now crying out to be awarded - Kerr was improving race by race but his prospects of hunting down the 2006 world number three were, in the Don King phrase, between slim and none with Slim out of town right now.

But a rerun it was, won comfortably by Pedersen whose celebratory wheelie as he crossed the line appeared to contain more than a hint of irony aimed at the official.

Pedersen and Shields led a robust Eagles challenge and a seven-point deficit going into their home leg may not be beyond them.

But Ipswich, with Nicholls already booked in again to replace the annually unwilling Pepe Protasiewicz, hold the whip hand. The unbeaten Mark Loram sparkled, Nicholls showed his customary drive and determination and they even had the best Wolves rider on show - guest Adam Skornicki.

By Tim Hamblin

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