Wounded Wolves dig in

With Freddie Lindgren at his most vibrant and skipper Peter Karlsson adjusting well to his new knee brace, there were plenty of positives to take from Saturday night's clash.

Lindgren deservedly headed the charts, taking a brace of victories with his customary flair after the strangest of opening rides.

The Swede had made the start but pulled a huge locker coming off bend two to allow Ipswich guest Joonas Kylmakorpi and partner Kim Jansson through.

Twice more Lindgren locked up on the same patch of track in the heat. But he salvaged second spot in bizarre fashion as Jansson, under no pressure coming off the fourth turn, got himself so inside out that he ended up wrestling his machine to a standstill on the centre green.

Lindgren benefited, but his two wins were all his own work and even though he missed the gate in his final ride he was still able to pick up second place courtesy of a dashing charge round the third and fourth bend boards to pick off Eastbourne's Dean Barker.

Further good tidings concerned the back from injury Karlsson, whose scheduled first outing against the Eagles' ultra-competitive Nicki Pedersen may well have caused some unease in the Wolves camp.

No problem. A smart start, a precisely applied shoulder as the Dane contested the first turn and off went Karlsson to record the night's fastest time and inflict what turned out to be Pedersen's sole defeat of the night.

While the skipper remains blindingly quick having made the start, the brace means he is still having to adjust his racing style when in traffic. But he sees no problems there and that can only be encouraging when Wolves make their final tilt at silverware in the Midland Trophy against Coventry.

Rather less encouraging from that perspective was the fine form shown by the Bees' Rory Schlein - riding for Wolves with Billy Hamill contesting the USA National championship - and Chris Harris, covering in the Ipswich ranks for the injured Chris Louis.

Harris had a splendid battle with British under-18 champ Lewis Bridger in the seventh before getting the better of the Eagle, who eventually fell while trying to recover the ground.

And Schlein did his temporary employers proud with a win over Ipswich's Mark Loram before overhauling Bridger for third in the final heat when off the 15m handicap for a tapes offence.

Schlein was the second rider of the night to be suckered into the elastic by the twitching David Norris. Loram was the first, and the glare with which he favoured the Eagle was more eloquent by far than any words he felt like uttering.

Seven races earlier Ronnie Correy had done very well to hunt down Joonas Kylmakorpi when off 15m for tape touching, and wasn't far off Jansson at the line either.

Stoke's Paul Clews, standing in for William Lawson, found the going rather too tough - but there was a wholly unexpected bonus for Wolves in the final race.

Chris Kerr's wall of death style had hitherto produced a fall and more plaudits than points but here the Redcar guest made a fine start before settling down to the thorny issue of keeping Norris at bay.

Eastbourne needed only to produce a finisher in the heat to qualify for the Shield final, and with the normally flamboyant Bridger proceeding carefully Norris appeared to have full licence to go for a race win.

He gave it the gun with gusto, challenging inside and out, but Kerr maintained a canny line to retain his advantage all the way to the flag.

The Wolves 4-2 put them level on the night with Ipswich and represented a decent night's work for a side tracking only three of its own men.

- There is no meeting at Monmore tonight to avoid a clash with the televised Elite League play-off second leg between Peterborough and Reading.

by Tim Hamblin

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