Speedway: Wasps clash ends in a farce

May 28 2007 By Andrew Dalby, The Journal

Newcastle recovered from eight points down to win last night's crazy Premier League meeting with a heat to spare, writes Andrew Dalby.

Skipper Christian Henry enjoyed his first paid maximum this year for the Warburtons Diamonds and Jonas Raun celebrated his best home score for the club.

But the main talking points concerned two riders strongly linked to both clubs - Carl Wilkinson and Phil Morris.

Newport asset Wilkinson is on loan to Newcastle and his current team-mates had to restrain him from taking revenge on the Wasps' Polish newcomer Michal Rajkowski after the re-run of heat eight. Rajkowski had forced Wilkinson very wide on the opening bend and another re-run seemed inevitable as the home rider tumbled into the fence.

But referee Jim McGregor kept the race going and later justified doing so by saying there had been no contact between the pair.

It enabled Rajkowski and Tom Hedley to collect a 5-1 over Sean Stoddart, stretching the visitors' lead to 28-20 while Wilkinson glared at the Pole from the centre green before being steered back to his own space in the pits while shouting he'd still remember the incident come the return fixture in September.

Morris spent an injury-hit 2005 as Newcastle skipper but was in great form on his first return to Tyneside since then with seven points in his opening three rides.

However, his own reserve Barry Burchatt was excluded for clattering into Morris in heat 12 and although Morris was second behind Josef Franc in the rerun, a damaged left shoulder meant he could not appear in the nominated final race.

But the Diamonds had sealed their comeback before those nominations were required as Raun and Henry shut out Chris Schramm and Rajkowski to put the home side 40-28 up while Ross Brady and Stoddart were equally dominant against Tony Atkin and Rajkowski.

The meeting ended farcically with Newport fielding only Schramm in the finale.

Wasps boss Tim Stone refused to include a reserve to replace his captain Atkin who had been excluded twice, firstly for touching the tapes when the referee had not put on the green light correctly and then for exceeding the time limit off a 15m handicap because the referee kept the clock ticking while hearing Stone's protest about the original exclusion.