Peterborough Panthers 54 – Wolverhampton Wolves 38 Thursday 1st June – Elite League A Peterborough win aggregate bonus point 96 – 86
Panthers stormed right back to the top of the Elite League with a hard fought close encounter against the Wolves. Even with 2 riders having off nights Peterborough still had far too much firepower for the visitors and restricted them to just two race winners all night, although there ability to fill the minor places early on ensured they stayed in contention till the end.
Hans Andersen won a rerun heat 1 but Wolves were immediately hit by a nasty leg injury to Magnus Karlsson when his chain broke and this ruled him out of the meeting. Panthers then went behind as the visitors took a 4-2 in heat 2, despite the best’s efforts of Richard Hall to pass the race winner Christian Henry.
Ryan Sullivan & Niels Kristian Iversen then put the Panthers back on track with a 5 -1 in heat 3 and Jesper Jensen blasted away from the tapes to win heat 4.
Ex Panther Peter Karlsson managed to split the Sullivan / Iversen pairing in heat 5 but there was no catching Sullivan and this 4-2 put then into a 4 point lead. Ulrich Ostergaard broke a chain at the start of heat 6 to start his stint at no 2 in the team disappointingly, but the skipper easily outpaced Billy Hamill and honours were again even.
Jensen won heat 7 but Jon Armstrong again struggled to make any impact as the visitors filled the minor places again. Christian Hefenbrock made an excellent gate to win heat 8 and was pushed all the way by Hall and Ostergaard but another drawn heat maintained the gap was still 4 points.
A Sullivan / Iversen 4-2 in heat 9 started to make things look interesting as the teams were now level for the bonus point and although Wolves didn’t look likely winners of the match, the bonus point was still in up for grabs.
Andersen and Ostergaard stretched the lead to 8 with a 4-2 over livewire Freddie Lindgren in heat 10 and Jensen won a hard fought battle with Karlsson in heat 11 to maintain it.
Rather surprisingly Wolves then installed Lindgren as a Tactical substitute in heat 12 who started off a 15 metre handicap. Sullivan made another excellent start but it was Hall who the fans were watching as he rounded Hefenbrock on the first bend and somehow managed to stay ahead of Lindgren for the whole 4 laps, cheered on by appreciative supporters.
The lead was now 12 points and we were now in the tactical ride arena with the bonus point clearly the target. Jensen with bike problems got himself excluded for exceeding the 2 minute allowance and had to start off 15 metres, initially it looked like he was going to catch at least one of the Wolves pair but a close encounter with the air fence on the 4th bend put paid to that and despite Andersen playing a full captains role by winning heat 13 the Hamill tactical ride and Karlsson minor places ensured a heat success to reduce the lead to 10 points.
Iversen rode an excellent first corner to win his first race of the evening despite pressure from Lindgren, but this and Halls 3rd place ensured the match points and the bonus.
Unbeaten stars Sullivan & Andersen took a maximum in heat 15 to ensure they stayed just that, which was a fitting end to an excellent match.
On the subject of Sullivan he looks back to his previous best around Alwalton and that was his fourth maximum so far. Andersen is now starting to look invincible around the Showground (5th Maximum) and the confidence and team spirit around the whole team is there to see. All in all a good entertaining and close meeting despite Panthers providing 13 race winners, if we ever have all 7 riding well someone is going to get an absolute thrashing
