Report courtesy Ian Belcher

You will have to go a long way to find a speedway meeting as good as this with 15 heats of top quality action. So much so that you were afraid to blink in case you missed another stunning piece of action.

The start of the meeting was delayed for some 30 minutes or so as both Somerset’s Emil Kramer and Thomas Jonasson of Edinburgh were caught up with flight problems in Sweden, Kramer eventually making it to the Oak Tree Arena in time for his second ride, but unfortunately for the Monarchs, Jonasson never got off the ground after trying to find an alternative flight from Berlin.  Rather than go into to meeting short-handed, Edinburgh drafted in the services of Somerset asset Matt Bates who happened to be at the Oak Tree Arena looking to try out a new engine after the meeting.

The meeting though was well worth the wait, but it could not have started any worse for the Rebels as they were forced to track Justin Sedgmen in the opening heat in place of the yet to arrive Kramer, and Edinburgh took full advantage of the situation as Fisher and Wethers, both renowned Oak Tree Arena experts sped from the tapes to hold the initial advantage.

In a perfect display of team riding the duo kept the ever persistent Simon Walker pegged back in third place, but all went horribly wrong for the Somerset rider as the three riders took to the pits turn on the third lap, Walker’s chain snapped sending him crashing to the ground.

Having just returned from a shoulder injury, the Somerset fans held their breath, as Walker lay prostrate on the ground before he finally got to his feet and walked back to the pits. With the race being awarded as a 5-1 to the Monarchs, the Rebels worst fears were realised when it was announced that Walker would take no further part in the meeting with a reoccurrence of that shoulder injury.

Just as Fisher and Wethers can be described as Oak Tree experts, the complete opposite could have been said about the Edinburgh reserve pairing of Aaron Summers and Sean Stoddart and so Somerset’s hopes were high of hitting back to nullify that opening heat reverse.

Summers had only scored a single point from 10 previous outings at Somerset, but just a minute later he had tripled that tally as first he made a lightening start and then rode an excellent four laps to deny Justin Sedgmen any chance of coming past into the lead.  But with Tom Brown, who had been suffering with flu in the days leading up to the match, taking third place a share of the spoils ensued to maintain Edinburgh’s four point advantage.

Whilst on the face of it, Cory Gathercole’s ‘tape to flag’ victory in heat 4 might have looked routine enough, it does not tell the terrific effort he had to put in to hold off the attentions of both Rajkowski and Tully who put him under constant pressure for the whole race, never giving the Aussie a moments peace until he finally took the chequered flag.

The Rebels got themselves back on level terms in heat 5 as although Sean Stoddart made the initial break from the tapes, he was quickly passed by Somerset’s Steve Johnston, and just a lap later Sedgmen was also through to follow his skipper for Somerset’s first maximum heat win of the night.  It was, however, to be a costly heat for Matt Bates as he blew his new engine with the race hardly in its stride, the unfortunate Bates having to withdraw from the meeting as a consequence.

Edinburgh immediately hit back but not in the circumstances they would have wished as although Gathercole held the initial advantage over Ryan Fisher, the American needed no second invitation to slip through the narrowest of gaps left by Gathercole and into the lead.

Eager to make amends, Gathercole set after his quarry, and as the pair entered the final turn he started to pull alongside Fisher, but in doing so just clipped the Edinburgh rider’s back wheel, causing his machine to ‘straighten up’ and hurtle towards the safety fence. The bike hit it with such force that both the fence and the machine were total write-offs and judging by the way Gathercole himself was flung through the air, one would not have been surprised if he suffered serious injury as a consequence.

Amazingly, just a few seconds after finally coming to a halt, Gathercole get to his feet, dusted himself down and walked away from the incident as if nothing had happened!

The heat result itself seemed a minor issue following an incident such as this, but with Gathercole’s ‘excursion’ to the safety fence it meant that Edinburgh had their second 5-1 of the night under their belts, re-establishing the four-point lead they had relinquished the heat previously.

Heat 6 finally saw the welcome sight to all Somerset fans of Emil Kramer emerging from the pits to take his place at the tapes.  Any thoughts that the rush to get to the Oak Tree Arena in time for the meeting had unsettled Kramer, were quickly dispelled as the super cool Swede flew out of the tapes and into the lead. All the action was happening behind the Somerset number 1 as Summers and Stoddart held the minor places going into the first turn with Sedgmen at the back for Somerset.

By the time the three of them had exited the second bend to head down the back straight Sedgmen was in second place having made a stunning pass round the outside of the Edinburgh duo and for the second time in three race the young Aussie combined with his team-mate for another maximum heat win for the home side.

In comparison to the first six races, heat 7 was a relatively tame affair, with Steve Johnston taking a tape to flag victory, but with Brown holding sway over the omnipresent Rajkowski for third place, putting Somerset in the lead for the first time in the match, with the home fans hoping that their side would now kick on from here to victory.

Those thoughts were quickly dashed however as Wethers and Summers put the visitors back into the lead with a maximum heat win over the Somerset pairing of Sedgmen and Brown.

Heats 9 and 10, though, were to prove to be the turning point in the match as Somerset recorded consecutive maximum heat victories of their own, the first of these seeing Gathercole showing no ill effects of his earlier crash by storming to victory, but behind him there was a rare old battle in progress between Somerset Jay Herne and Aaron Summers for the visitors.

First one would seem to have gained the upper hand, then the other, before Herne finally eked out enough of an advantage to follow Gathercole home in second place.

That encounter was nothing compared to what followed in heat 10 as although Kramer yet again was in command as soon as the tapes went up, behind him Sedgmen, Rajkowski and Tully were at it hammer and tong, passing and re-passing each other as if their lives depended upon it, the action only slightly easing up when Tully dropped out of the race at the end of the third lap with bike problems.

Up front, Kramer took the race win, blissfully unaware of the excitement that was going on behind him as Sedgmen just did enough to hold off Rajkowski in the run for the line.

With the final third of the meeting to go, Somerset were now 6 points to the good, the biggest lead either team had managed to establish so far in this epic encounter, and that’s how it remained following heat 11, Johnston making it three wins out of three and in the process inflicting the first defeat of the night on the potent Fisher/Wethers partnership for Edinburgh.

That six point lead became a slightly more comfortable eight in heat 12, but it was that man Sedgmen, continuing the superb form he showed in Somerset’s last home match against Berwick, who was in the thick of the action yet again.

It was Tully for Edinburgh who held the lead out of the start, but having found the outside line already in this match, Sedgmen did it again, and in an imperious sweep around the outside, the 17 year old propelled himself into the lead, Tully never able to get back on terms after that.

Yet again Herne picked up the point for third place, holding off Summers in doing so, and with three heats remaining, Somerset led the reigning Premier League Champions 40-32.

The first attempt to run heat 13 lasted as far as the first bend, Fisher coming to grief as the three riders, Bates being unable to take his place in the line up, all got to the bend at the same time.

At the second time of asking, it was Fisher who made the gate and held the lead for the first lap before Johnston made a sublime inside pass on the American as the riders took to the first turn for the second time.

The move seemed to unsettle Fisher slightly, and sensing an opportunity, Kramer then made his move on the Edinburgh number 1.  Fisher responded to Kramer’s attempted pass and the pair headed down the back straight side by side, and that’s how they virtually remained for the rest of the race, locked together neither giving an inch as they both fought for supremacy.

Eventually it was Fisher who gained enough of an advantage to take second place, but with Edinburgh now 10 points in arrears, the ‘black and white’ double point tactical move beckoned for the Monarchs.

Pole, Michal Rajkowski was given the responsibility of trying earn his side double points and with it an outside chance of, if not sneaking the meeting victory, then at least taking something back to Armadale for their troubles.

The visitor’s hopes of the tactical move paying dividends must have raised several notches when Gathercole was excluded from the initial running of the heat for failing to beat the two-minute time allowance.  However, with Sedgmen having completed his maximum of 7 rides, the only option left for Somerset team manager, Ronnie Russell, was to start Gathercole off a 15-metre handicap.

But ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’ as the saying goes and that man was to be Tom Brown.  Decidedly under the weather due to suffering from a flu bug, Brown summoned up his last reserves and shot from the tapes heading both Summers and tactical man Rajkowski in the process.

The Edinburgh pair both made their moves on Brown, but to no avail, whilst all the time behind them all Gathercole was rapidly closing in on them both.

As they entered the final lap, Gathercole was past Rajkowski, the double point move heading quickly southwards, and by the time the riders flashed over the finishing line he was only inches from snatching second places from Summers.

With the match and all three points safely in Somerset hands, one could be forgiven if the there was a let up in the action for the fifteenth and final heat, but that was not in the script as far as the four riders who took to the tapes were concerned.

What followed can only be described as four laps of pure breathtaking action as the field of, Kramer and Johnston for Somerset, Fisher and Wethers for Edinburgh went wheel to wheel. The proverbial blanket could have been thrown over all four of them; such was the closeness of the action. With the lead, and the minor places for that matter, continually changing hands, it was Wethers who just took the race win, with little more than two bike lengths between first and last at the chequered flag.

Finally, the crowd were able to catch their breath such had been the non-stop action from the tapes rising on the opening heat right through to the chequered flag in heat 15.

In the final analysis, Somerset took the honours 50-40, but the real winners were the sport of speedway itself and the fans who were fortunate enough to witness this meeting, one that will no doubt remain in their memories for many years to come.

Report courtesy Ian Belcher