With Belle Vue Colts thumping Eastbourne to overhaul the Sussex side at the top, Chris Hunt’s charges needed a minimum winning margin of seven points at Loomer Rd. to finish themselves ahead of the side from Manchester. In the end, a 47-43 win (taking the battle for the table topping status down to a last heat decider) meant the Kings came up just short, but for a second season running have second spot in the division going into the play offs – tied level with the Colts but behind them due to an inferior points for and against difference.
The match in the Potteries had everything: excitement, a fluctuating score line, spills and injuries, controversy and not a small amount of confusion.
The match was the second part of a double header and when the first match between the hosts and Mildenhall was badly interrupted by an appalling crash which saw the Potters’ Luke Priest and the Fen Tigers’ Connor Mountain both taken by ambulance to hospital, there was immediate concerns not just about those two track warriors’ welfare but whether the two matches could reach conclusions before the 9.30pm curfew.
After some deliberation, an unusual decision was made that in order to reach conclusions to both TPNL matches, each match would be reduced to just ten heats. Sure enough that was the case with the Stoke vs Mildenhall encounter – ending in a 30-30 draw.
And so onto the Kings match. Stoke were now obviously without Priest and having to use Rider Replacement. The same facility was of course being utilised by Kent – for the previously ever-present Jack Thomas – with Birmingham’s Taylor Hampshire an interesting choice at Guest for the also missing Dan Greenwood.
Opening race wins for skipper Luke Bowen (over the Aussie who will be representing Stoke in the National League Riders Championship [NLRC] on Sunday, Mitchell Davey) and the in-form George Hunter saw the scores level after two heats. The first movement ahead came from the hosts, with the experienced duo of Tony Atkin and Paul Burnett securing a 4-2; though that two-point margin was wiped out two heats later with Bowen and R/R pick Ben Hopwood delivering a first heat advantage of the evening for the visitors.
Level after five (with only 10 heats scheduled) really had the Kings up against it in terms of getting the seven points win they’d need; and that task looked nigh impossible when Davey and Burnett combined to take a maximum in heat six.
It was level again in heat eight though, with Anders Rowe bursting into life after two last places to reel off the first of a hat trick of wins and Hunter following him home for a 5-1 of Kent’s own. Sadly though this was to be Hunter’s last scoring contribution, because a fall when leading in the next race lead to calamity. Replacing debutant James Laker, the Essex-based racer stormed from the gate leading from Lee Dicken and team mate for the day, Hampshire only to spin out of control and be collected by the closely following Dicken with Hampshire also crashing out.
Again the busy Loomer Rd. paramedics team were called into action with Hunter eventually being taken off track alarmingly in a wheelchair – with an ankle injury. No details yet available on the extent of the injury.
Despite the delay, when another Rowe win backed by Hopwood levelled the scores at 30-30 saw the artificial 10 heat threshold reached, it was in fact forty minutes shy of the Stoke curfew and so a sensible decision was made to continue and convert back into a full 15 heat match.
A chance of gaining the seven points win needed suddenly re-materialised. And that became very much a possibility when the resurgent Hampshire combined with Bowen to take a 5-1 and put the Kings ahead for a first time on the night in heat 11. Hopwood won his second race of a productive night in heat 12 and Hampshire and Bowen combined to secure a 3-3 behind Davey in the next race – Dicken having joined Hunter in withdrawing from the fray. That meant with two heats to go the Kings led by four – needing to secure heat advantages to get to the ‘magnificent seven’. It wasn’t to happen in heat 14 but Rowe was magnificent in storming to victory but sadly young Laker couldn’t get past either Ryan Terry-Daley or Shaun Tedham.
So it was a last heat decider – with Bowen & Hopwood now needing a 5-1.
Davey though is a tough proposition at home and indeed the Aussie claimed the last heat victory with the race ending in chaotic and unpleasant scenes involving his pit crew who scuffled with Bowen – certainly warming things up for when the two clash again at Sunday’s big NLRC individual at Leicester.
It is difficult for anyone to be disappointed at failing narrowly to top the division after the run the magnificent Kings have gone on. To have overhauled Eastbourne and caught one-time runway leaders Belle Vue is an extraordinary feat for Chris Hunt’s team. Next up is to await who the Colts’ management choose as their pick for the Play Off semis – it would be a brave team who picked the Kings on this rich vein of form!