Wolves speedway scrape through

Wolves 48 Swindon 42

Club Sponsor Parrys International have just won the UK Coach of the Year award - Wolves are barely scraping an MoT pass.

Wolves have plenty of surface gloss, with Fredrik Lindgren, Peter Karlsson and Tai Woffinden producing showroom polish performances.

But, underneath the bonnet, the rest of the side is not quite finding peak revs.

Last night saw another home point dropped, with unfancied Swindon kicking the home tyres and tenaciously grinding out tied heats in each of the last four races to claim their reward.

On a track made heavy by a major 5.30pm downpour much of the early action was attritional.

But the surface dried out sufficiently for racing to improve with three successive heat advantages leaving Wolves six up with three to go.

From that point they really should have closed out the meeting to take all three points, but reckoned without visiting No 1 Scott Nicholls.

The five-time British champion produced a masterful race to win heat 13. First he swung out wide to block Karlsson, a manoeuvre which of necessity opened the door to Fredrik Lindgren on the inside.

But, just as the Wolves No 1 appeared to see daylight, over came Nicholls to get across him on the run in to turn three and assume command.

It was a superbly juggled piece of action in which the slightest error on his part could have left either or both of the home riders to overtake.

Heat 14 was shared as the outstanding Woffinden won at a canter and that left Wolves, off the unfavourable outside gates, needing a heat advantage in the last for all three points.

Nicholls denied them even a sniff despite Fredrik Lindgren's daring excursion to the very limits of adhesion in turn four.

Lindgren had to show his mettle more than once in coming through from the back last night, while Karlsson twice picked off the willing Tomasz Chrzanowski.

But the performance of the evening came from Woffinden, whose balance and throttle control are made for such conditions.

He dropped his only point in a bizarre heat five which saw Cory Gathercole disqualified for exceeding the two-minute time allowance. The Swindon man went to the tapes regardless but was eventually replaced by Justin Sedgmen.

This chaotic state of affairs continued for so long that once the race began Woffinden, within sight of the finishing line, ran out of fuel and could only coast in for second place as Nicholls got him on the line. Wolves as a whole are still not firing.

And team boss Peter Adams has admitted that the team needs more scoring down the order.

He said: "It's easy to get downhearted when you don't achieve what you expect to. We've got some issues in the team that we need to address.

"I thought the top three did their jobs and Tai Woffinden looked particularly sharp.

"But the bottom line is that you need points from every department of the team and not just ones, twos and threes."

By Tim Hamblin