Late late news.! The Somerset PROFILE Rebels have a busy week with two home fixtures at the Oak Tree Arena on WEDNESDAY and FRIDAY nights. The rained –off clash with the Isle of Wight lost to the weather last Friday night has been hastily re-arranged for Wednesday night with the Wightlink Islanders looking to stop their recent spell of losses. Their title hopes have been hit by losing at both Trelawny and Rye House and they will be looking to keep up their challenge for the title with a win at Somerset. The PROFILE Rebels though will be equally keen to achieve victory as they are sitting in an interesting league position where a few good wins could bring them into contention for an end of season play-off place. Whereas the Islanders are missing the injured Matt Read and will use rider-replacement to cover his rides and have skipper Ray Morton back from injury, the Rebels are at full strength and determined to see off the challenge of the Islanders. Mario Jirout , unbeaten in the last two home meetings at the Oak Tree Arena attempts to make it a hat-trick of maximums but he will have his work cut out coming up against the newly crowned Premier League Pairs Champions Danny Bird and Adam Shields , who set the second fastest time around the circuit at the Somerset Open Championship. 48 hours later on Friday night the Rebels face another tough encounter when the reigning Premier League Champions Newcastle are the visitors. Both meetings start at the usual 7.30 pm with the “KIDS GO FREE” campaign continuing admitting children under 15 for free during the school holiday break.
Teams : : Somerset PROFILE Rebels (in association with Brean Leisure Park) : Mario Jirout
; 2. Graeme Gordon ; 3. Neil Collins ; 4. Steve Bishop; 5. Glenn
Cunningham ; 6. Adam Allott ; 7. Shane McCabe. Isle of Wight “WIGHTLINK Islanders” : 1.
Ray Morton (c) ; 2. Henning Bager ; 3. Danny Bird ; 4. Matt Read
(R/R); 5. Adam Shields; 6. Nick Simmons; 7. Gary Phelps
Real Diamonds..! On Friday August 16th the reigning league champions, Newcastle, are the visitors to the Oak Tree Arena for their first ever visit. In the corresponding fixture up north Somerset were well beaten and have a mountain to climb to get anywhere near the bonus point requiring a mammoth 62 points to achieve this ! The Diamonds have a very solid looking side, having strengthened up since the start of the season bringing former Oak Tree Arena track record holder RICHARD JUUL back into the side after Rob Grant was injured. Once Danish sensation KENNETH BJERRE established a real average they also were then able to bring in WAYNE CARTER to the side. They also brought Poole asset DAVY WATT back from Australia where he had remained having not returned to 2001 club Isle of Wight despite a highly successful debut season to replace the injured Jesper Olsen. KENNETH BJERRE has really settled in and produced some high scoring returns in recent weeks and looks a real find continuing the club’s run of bringing on youngsters from Denmark as he follows in the tyre tracks of NIKKI PEDERSEN and BJARNE PEDERSEN who both are now establish as prolific scorers in the Elite League at Kings Lynn and Poole respectively. ANDRE COMPTON, former team mate of Glen Cunningham, has been a solid scorer for the side in his third spell at the club. The 25 year old from Dewsbury made his debut for the club back in 1993. DAVY WATT had a good first season on the Island last year and it was a major surprise that he was not brought back in 2002. Newcastle though saw the potential of the Australian and flew him in when they wanted to strengthen up and he ahs not let them down starting with some really high scores as he has upped his average by 0.71 a match. KEVIN LITTLE was the Rebels top scorer at Edinburgh covering for Neville Tatum with 14. The 29 year old Edinburgh born racer has in the main ridden for Northern sides apart from one season in Elite League at Coventry. Dane RICHARD JUUL, whose real surname is Sorensen, was once the fastest man around Highbridge until Sam Ermolenko took the track record at the Somerset Open in June. The 31 year old from Copenhagen overcame serious injuries suffered in a track crash at Oxford riding for parent club Wolverhampton, to return and become a solid scoring second string. WAYNE CARTER, an all action racer, is the cousin of the late Kenny Carter, once one of England’s white hope of becoming a world champion. The Halifax born racer has raced for several tracks since first racing in 1989 and is still a Wolverhampton asset. DEREK SNEDDON has made vast strides this season since joining the Diamonds upping his average to 4.62 making him the second highest averaged No. 7 in the league. The Falkirk born 20 year old joined the club from Glasgow and has not looked back since. Certainly the PROFILE Rebels will have their work cut out to gain anything from the visiting Newcastle side , who look very solid from 1 to 7. What is certain is that the paying public are going to be treated to another 15 heats of top class speedy racing. With the Rebels racing their second home meeting of the week after the re-arranged clash with Isle of Wight , lost to the weather on Friday re-staged on Wednesday night (14th August).
TEAMS : Somerset PROFILE Rebels (in association with : Brean Leisure Park).
Mario Jirout. 2. Graeme Gordon. 3. Neil Collins.
4. Steve Bishop. 5. Glenn Cunningham. 6. Adam Allott. 7. Shane
McCabe. 1. Andre Compton; 2. Richard Juul; 3. Kenneth Bjerre; 4. Kevin Little; 5. Davy Watt; 6. Wayne Carter; 7. Derek Sneddon.
First race 7.30 pm. Parade 7.25 pm.
The Somerset PROFILE Rebels were left cursing the weather last week that cost them their attractive Premier League clash with the Isle of Wight. With very few fixtures last week due to the World Cup and undoubtedly a large contingent of overseas fans over for the competition, the club were expecting a fair number to venture down the M5 to see the clash with the Wightlink Islanders. Despite a lot of hard work by the track staff with “Terry the Track” spending hours and hours on the Thursday packing the track in all was in vain in the end with the meeting called off at 2.45. The heavy overnight rain did little damage to the circuit with a few puddles easily removed. Unfortunately a heavy band of rain hit the West Country late morning and with forecasts of further downpours the early decision was made to call off. Co-Promoter Andrew Hewlett had already discussed a possible quick re-staging the following Wednesday with Dave Pavitt and thought that this was agreed with tele-text immediately giving the re-staging date. Unfortunately when the Islanders boss checked the availability of his side he found that Danny Bird was at Kings Lynn for Ipswich and Ray Morton was in Poland. This meant a swift re-issue of a press release from Laurence Rogers to all the press outlets having already informed them of the Wednesday night re-staging! Then on Sunday the Islanders called to agree to the return on Wednesday night meaning a further press release going out !! Confusion reigns supreme! The weather has now seen the Rebels lose six home meetings in 2002 and four away and must class as one of the worst summers for weather for many a year. It now has to be fingers crossed that the sun will finally shine and the club can benefit from the local influx of holiday makers. They have been highly pro-active in hitting the holiday areas this year and with their tie-up with Brean Leisure Park the speedway is a focal point for families hitting the Somerset seaside’s. Also on race days General manager Gareth Rogers busily travels around with a sound system on his car advertising the Rebels and some fine weather on a Friday will hopefully see this start to pay dividends. With Kids Go Free throughout the summer holiday period for the Under 15’s crowds should be on the increase especially once they see the superb standard of speedway racing on show at the Oak Tree Arena. With the powerful Newcastle Diamonds in town this week orders are being put in for some dry and sunny weather with the Rebels facing a tough task against the reigning league champions. In the corresponding fixture the Diamonds thrashed the Rebels 62-28 on the end of a two match northern tour and revenge for this is uppermost on the minds of Somerset. The bonus point though looks to be a formality for Newcastle with the Rebels needing to rattle up their highest score of the season requiring a massive 63 points to achieve this….but in this sport of speedway you never know!! With the Rebels having a free weekend last week demand for them as guests was high. Glenn Cunningham had two bookings for Swindon at Workington and Newcastle, Neil Collins was booked by Wolverhampton at Belle Vue and when Peter Carr was injured on Friday night Edinburgh were trying to get Mario Jirout to cover for him at Glasgow but the Czech Republic international had already booked a trip back home accompanying some of his country’s main “big-wigs” who had been basing themselves with him at his Peterborough base during the World Cup, which he then had to cancel at the last moment due to the re-arrangement of the Isle of Wight clash ….best laid plans and all that!!
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