Woffinden the winner at Midland Open

And he never looked like missing the appointment last night.

Just days ago the rider's father, Rob, made public the long-known news about his struggle with cancer.

That, coupled with the fact that the Gary Peterson Memorial Trophy honours a Wolves rider who lost his life while pursuing his dream on track, made a compelling conjunction.

And as early as the third round of rides at Monmore last night it was clear that Woffinden was marked out for the podium's highest step.

One by one the rivals fell away – literally in the case of Lewis Bridger – to pave his way to the title.

Electric from the starts, fast and controlled throughout, Woffinden was never headed in his first four outings and went to the tapes in the final heat knowing that second place would give him the crown.

Wolves team-mate Nicolai Klindt, needing a win to make the rostrum, trapped to lead and Woffinden was content to follow.

Klindt had made the worst possible start to his title tilt, locking up on the first bend of heat three and causing Simon Lambert to fall. The subsequent exclusion removed him from the file marked 'contender' to the one labelled 'dangerous floater'.

So he proved, four pulsating starts banishing the woes from last week's performance against Ipswich and propelling him to third place overall.

Second spot, and thoroughly deserved too, went to former Monmore favourite William Lawson. The self-effacing Scot demonstrated pace from the back, stalking Chris Kerr in Heat 13 and pouncing on a slight last-bend error to win the race to the line.

But he also showed a canny racing head when defending a position under pressure from the likes of future star Darcy Ward. The young Aussie is already marked as a major talent and his 10 points here did nothing to downgrade the rating.

He picked his way through from last to first in his opening race and executed a razor-sharp pits bend cutback to take his second, looking for all the world as if he had spent his recent injury lay-off studying Peter Karlsson DVDs.

Although his blasts round the boards yielded few passes later – the likes of Lawson and Ty Proctor know a bit too much at this stage – Ward was an immediate pick when referee Phil Griffin selected his most exciting rider of the night.

Elsewhere on a night of splendid racing from the young field, there were heavy points from home hope Proctor and Newcastle's classy Dane Kenni Larsen.

Joe Haines also got four races under his belt in his first competitive outings since the May crash that put him into a halo brace, taking Andrew Tully's rides after a first bend fall for the Scot affected an existing hip injury.

So to Bridger. With the exception of this year's under-21 championship final, few could recall a big individual meeting in which this hugely gifted but intensely frustrating rider has done justice to his talent by stringing together a series of consistent heats.

For some reason there's nothing like the sight of Woffinden to send cool calculation out of the Eastbourne man's head and admit full throttle in to plug the gap.

So it was in Heat 10 that Bridger went gung-ho round the turn three boards in a pursuit of his rival that was always going to come to no good end.

Down he went – and on to the title went Woffinden.