Wolves Speedway team fall at home

Wolves speedway ace Tai Woffinden and his team-mates found themselves in deep trouble at Monmore Green last night.

A track surface with lots of shale proved trickier for the home side than the visiting Coventry Bees, who won the Midlands derby 47-42.

• Click on the image to the right for more photos

Wolves were left dazzled and dirty as they slipped to a fourth Elite League home defeat.

A very deep Monmore surface seemed to cause the home side more problems than the visitors, Wolves suffering from a string of falls.

And, of all things in this soggiest of summrs, bright sunshine halted the meeting before the rerun of heat seven as riders were being dazzled as they entered the third turn.

The tumbles and the delay helped break the momentum built up over the first few races by the Parrys International Wolves.

Despite their early eight-point advantage, the home side were reeled in by a Coventry outfit packed with track specialists.

The usual suspects, Chris Harris and Scott Nicholls, had by their standards relatively quiet meetings.

But Kenni Larsen, one of the few bright spots in the Bees' 2012 campaign, contributed 10 points and Adam Roynon – who might well rattle a few cages on this track in next Monday's British championship final – had a famous victory over Tai Woffinden in his paid eight.

Wolves' resistance was undermined by falls, though Freddie Lindgren had three victories and flu victim Woffinden battled away gamely. Ty Proctor was customarily robust – Roynon will be massaging the odd bruise today after being dumped into the safety fence in the opening corner of heat eight – and produced the ride of the night in race six. But it was not enough, and Wolves lost the match with a heat to run.

As team boss Peter Adams observed afterwards: "Coventry always have a team full of people who can get round this track.

"I'd rather race them at Brandon than here any day."

Wolves

F Lindgren 3-1-2-3-3 12, T Proctor 2*-3-3-0-0 8+1, R Miskowiak 3-X-2-2 7, R Wells 2*-1-1*-1 5+2, T Woffinden 3-2-2-X 7, M Kus 2-X-0-0 2, J Thorssell 1*-0-X-0 1+1

Coventry

C Harris 1-3-1-2-1* 8+1, A Roynon R-2*-1*-3 6+2, E Kennett 0-X-1-3 4, K Larsen 1-3-3-3 10, S Nicholls 1*-2-3-1*-2 9+2, A Summers 3-0-0-1 4, C Heeps 0-2-2-2* 6+1

Heat details

1: Lindgren (55.11), Proctor, Harris, Roynon (ret) 5-1

2: Summers (57.02), Kus, Thorssell, Heeps 8-4

3: Miskowiak (56.80), Wells, Larsen, Kennett 13-5

4: Woffinden (56.82), Heeps, Nicholls, Thorssell (fell, rem) .16-8

5: Harris (56.60), Roynon, Wells, Miskowiak (rerun).. 17-13

6: Proctor (56.66), Nicholls, Lindgren, Summers 21-15

7: Larsen (57.19), Woffinden, Kennett (fell, disq), Kus (fell, disq) (rerun twice) 23-18

8: Proctor (56.67), Heeps, Roynon, Thorssell (rerun twice) 26-21

9: Nicholls (56.59), Miskowiak, Wells, Summers 29-24

10: Larsen (56.69), Lindgren, Kennett, Proctor 31-28

11: Roynon (56.99), Woffinden, Harris, Kus (fell, rem) 33-32

12: Kennett (57.15), Miskowiak, Summers, Thorssell.. 35-36

13: Lindgren (56.50), Harris, Nicholls, Woffinden (rerun) 38-39

14: Larsen (57.11), Heeps, Wells, Kus 39-44

15: Lindgren (56.43), Nicholls, Harris, Proctor 42-47