Wolves speedway stay at the bottom

King's Lynn 50 Wolves 43

Fredrik Lindgren produced one of the all-time stunning rides at Saddlebow Road - but it was not enough to drag Wolves off the bottom of the Elite League.

Team boss Peter Adams had earmarked last night for a league point, only to see his team fall short by the most slender of margins.

A sucession of falls and errors, particularly in the early part of the meeting, ultimately proved costly.

But back to Lindgren. A fall for younger brother Ludvig in heat 12, clipping the back wheel of Filip Sitera when trying to claw back second place on the final turn, left Wolves 10 points adrift with three to run.

It was double-point, black and white helmet time, but the omens looked grim when Lynn's Danish duo of Kenneth Bjerre and Niels-Kristian Iversen sped from the tapes.

Lindgren repeatedly tried to round the team-riding pair in one fell swoop, only to be rebuffed.

But the Swede, whose stunning fourth to first ride at the same venue in last year's Speedway World Cup was the defining moment in the meeting, was not to be denied.

On the third lap he sliced inside Bjerre on the run to the third turn and maintained enough speed and shape through the turn to emerge with the advantage.

Although there was but a single lap remaining, it was clear to all that Iversen would suffer the same fate.

So it proved, Lindgren producing a virtual carbon copy of the move on the final turn – possibly going in even deeper, as he admitted afterwards – and holding on round the boards to the line.

It was the defining answer to those who felt that, after a brace of sub-standard meetings at Poole and Eastbourne, Lindgren might be losing just the faintest touch of his edge.

Tai Woffinden had suffered a dreadful fall in his first race when taken wide by Oliver Allen and then looping, his machine bouncing across the centre stretch of concrete and coming to rest fully 50 yards away.

But Woffinden is made of stern stuff – he even tried to crawl off the track to allow the race to continue – and rattled off nine points from his remaining rides.

This included the heat 14 victory that left Wolves needing a heat advantage in the last to take what would have been a well-deserved point.

Unfortunately for them, Bjerre took the vital win with Woffinden and Fredrik Lindgren in his wake. It was hard on Wolves, who contributed fully to a meeting featuring excellent racing.

While Peter Karlsson fell a touch below his standards and Ricky Wells faded after a fall, Tyson Burmeister produced a performance that belied his scorechart.

On another night the American might have scored in all his races. In a sport of fine margins he appeared so close to a breakthrough – rather like his team.

By Tim Hamblin