Wolves finish league season on high

Wolves 52 Belle Vue 41

Never mind Hurricane Katia – Wolves hit Belle Vue with Tai-phoon Woffinden.

The 21-year-old reeled off his third successive five-ride maximum at home, as Wolves ended their Elite League programme with a welcome win.

And Woffinden, who may well finish this season as the league's top-averaging Briton, has now been beaten just once in his last 21 outings at Monmore Green byTroy Batchelor, before anyone asks.

There seemed little chance of the Wolves ace extending his run when he trailed WV2 specialist Chris Harris by yards on the last lap of his opening race.

But a dive into the final turn on a deep track saw the two scrabble wheel-to-wheel round the corner, with Woffinden slowly but inexorably working his rival away from the racing line before sealing the verdict on the run to the flag.

If that was a gripper, the final race surpassed it for drama and daring. Belle Vue needed a heat advantage for a league point .

Rory Schlein, who has made the big breakthrough to No 1 race jacket status this term, shot from the start and looked to drive Woffinden out into the deep dirt on the opening corner.

The Wolves man saw it coming, cut back inside and was soon followed through by Freddie Lindgren.

But Woffinden's avowed intention of recent weeks to reduce his speed into the corners appeared to be lost on a sea of adrenaline and he ploughed way too deep into the pits corner, extricating himself just in time to see Schlein scoot to the front.

However, the battered Lindgren, still recovering from his big smash last month but more at ease as the track smoothed out, was soon on the scene to power under Schlein into turn three.

Lindgren skilfully took his rival's line on the exit to such good effect that he opened a huge gap, of which Woffinden cheerfully availed himself.

Schlein flew the flag manfully for the Aces – he repeatedly pressed Lindgren on the inside in heat one before finally wriggling through – and received good backing from Patrick Hougaard and Ricky Kling.

The six-point return posted by Harris could easily have been 10.

The Belle Vue man retired from second place after passing the admirable Ty Proctor in heat 10 and just missed out to captain Peter Karlsson in the seventh.

It was a duel conducted as much mentally, as physically as each tried to out-guess the other.

The Wolves skipper got tremendous traction out of the second turn on the inside run, the so-called 'Karlsson corridor,' while the dirt-loving Harris took the high road.

Yet on the final lap Karlsson parked himself on the dirt line out of the same corner only for Harris to divine his intention and switch to the inside run which nearly, so nearly gave him enough momentum to take the win.

With Proctor again excellent, dropping his only point to the tactical ride of Hougaard in heat eight, and Ludvig Lindgren continuing something of a renaissance Wolves looked in good shape.

Lubos Tomicek also contributed, but poor Ricky Wells had one of those nights when the scorechart contains more letters than numbers. Twice Wells he was in position for a home 5-1, only to come to grief.

Woffinden could hardly have positioned himself more helpfully for his partner in heat nine, but Wells misread his intentions and found himself perilously close to his team-mate before sliding off.

Three heats later, he was a comfortable leader only to pick up a huge amount of drive exiting turn four and find himself rearing wildly in the direction of the fence.

That mishap saw Wolves' lead cut to just three points. But the last three heats saw the wind in their sails.

By Tim Hamblin