Kent SLYDE Kings moved up into second place in Speedway’s Travel Plus National League with a win at the Isle of Wight on Tuesday.  

With four of the septet in action posting paid double figures tallies, this was a solid all round team performance which confirmed the status of the Sittingbourne-based club as real contenders for the championship. 

Never headed after taking a heat one lead, there was none the less little between the sides until the closing six heats (similar indeed to the previous evening’s match vs. Stoke), when the SLYDE Kings pulled away to take the maximum four league points available.

 Again young reserve Jack Thomas was busy – taking the full permitted amount of seven rides and to prolific effect again too: scoring paid 12 points.  This included two important heat wins: holding the other two reserves at bay in heat 2 (always a marker for how the scoring is likely to proceed in the lower order of the teams) and then, partnered home by James Shanes in a maximum delivered at a crucial point of proceedings in heat 7.

Up to that point things had been very nip and tuck – the hosts pulled level in heat three when Danny Ayres fell and was excluded and that parity remained over the next three heats.
Heat 8 was important with Thomas out again partnered by Luke Clifton and retaining the four point margin as they held off young George Piper and then in heat 10 the potent partnership of Shanes and Thomas pushed the lead out further to six points.

After Ayres’ initial first race fall he was flying too – recording a fastest time for any rider this season in heat six & skipper Luke Bowen was leading admirably as ever from the front.

There was another rules-based controversy brewing when the machinations of when new tyres can be used in circumstances where Rider Replacement is deployed (a very confusing debate indeed) caused a long debate in the pits but nothing was going to put the determined SLYDE Kings off their stride and the win was confirmed by, appropriately enough, that teenaged pairing of Shanes & Tomas in heat 14. 

That just left the extra point up for grabs for winning by seven or more points and to get that a heat advantage was needed in the nominated riders’ race – despite missing the gate and initially trailing the Warriors’ guest, Matt Williamson – Shanes and Bowen stormed back to deliver a 5-1 and take the bonus point with interest.

Next up for Kent is the ‘re-match’ with the Isle of Wight – at Central Park on Monday 1^st. August when the new averages come into play.