Tigers moved back to the top of the Premier League with a comfortable victory over a Berwick side, who actually led for the first 5 heats.
This was due to winning the first three heats, mainly due to Danny Ayres twice coming to grief and a twice re-run heat 2 where Kasper Lykke won, despite being in last place in the previous two runnings!! Coty Garcia’s bad luck continued when he ran into the back of Liam Carr who had locked up in front of him and then had Lykke pass him in the resultant match race.
Aaron Summers took the first home win in heat 4 but with Stuart Robson winning the next, the Bandits led 15-14. Then two great pieces of team riding by first Richard Lawson, fending off Thomas Jorgensen, allowed Rene Bach his first home heat win and then Aaron Summers did likewise with Garcia in the next, keeping Kevin Doolan behind.
Theo Pijper took his second win of the afternoon in heat 8, sharing the race before Richie Worrall took his first win in heat 9, Lykke passing Garcia for second.
Doolan split the home pairing in heat 10, taking the score to 35-24, allowing the visitors to use the TR in heat 11.
Theo Pijper was chosen ahead of Robson and this looked like a good choice as he made the start. Summers was quickly into second and set after the former Tiger, powering up the inside of him on the third bend, second time around to take the lead, which he maintained coming out of the 4th bend, winning the race by some distance.
Bandits then took another heat advantage in heat 12 to cut the lead to 7.
Heat 13 looked like it might be re-started after Robson lifted on the apex of the first two bends, seemingly impeding Lawson, who slowed, only for the red lights to remain unlit. His fruitless chase of Jorgensen, gave the visitors an outside chance of a point.
It wasn’t to be as Worrall and Garcia took an easy 4-2 to put the home side 48-37 up.
Heat 15 then threw up another tape touching incident after Pijper went straight through them, Berwick deciding to use Lykke rather than the more interesting 15m from gate 2!! Doolan then ran out of room trying to go around Summers, before Summers wrapped up his paid maximum with a 5-1 with Lawson over Doolan to win 53-38.
Like the League Cup tie in April, Berwick made the better start, although unlike that match, they had the majority of last places(13), which considering they are a solid side was surprising. With four former Tigers in their side they will be disappointed to have lost by so much but with Stuart Robson, Matthew Wethers and Liam Carr only scoring 5 between them, there were too many passengers.
For the Tigers, it was a steady home debut for Rene Bach with a solid paid 8 and he backed up the top 3 who all scored double figures. Special mention to Coty Garcia who rode on despite a suspected broken nose and sore shoulder after his crash in heat 2, riding borrowed machinery, he still scored paid 9.
With a big gap to the next home match, it should give time for the bumps and bruises in the team to heal and for some niggly bike problems to be sorted out before the second half of the season starts.
Glasgow Tigers 53 Berwick Bandits 38 Premier League 12/6/2016 Glasgow Tigers Richard Lawson 2 2* 3 1 2* 10 + 2 Rene Bach 1* 3 2 1 7 + 1 Richie Worrall 2 2 3 2 3 12 Nike Lunna R/R (0 1* 1 3 5 + 1) Aaron Summers 3 2* 3 3 3 14 + 1 Fernando Garcia 2 1* 3 1 0 1 8 + 1 Danny Ayres Fx F 1 1* 0 2 + 1 Berwick Bandits Stuart Robson 0 3 1* R 4 + 1 Theo Pijper 3 0 3 4^ 10 Kevin Doolan 3 1 2 3 1 10 Matthew Wethers 1 0 0 0 1 Thomas Jorgensen 2 1 0 2 5 Kasper Lykke 3 0 2 1 2 0 8 Liam Carr X 0 F 0 Heat 1 - Theo Pijper ; Richard Lawson ; Rene Bach ; Stuart Robson ; 58.6 (3-3)(3-3) Heat 2 - (2 re-runs) Kasper Lykke ; Fernando Garcia ; Liam Carr(X) ; Danny Ayres(Fx); 58.9 (2-3)(5-6) Heat 3 - Kevin Doolan ; Richie Worrall ; Matthew Wethers ; Danny Ayres(Frmt) ; 58.5 (2-4)(7-10) Heat 4 - Aaron Summers ; Thomas Jorgensen ; Danny Ayres ; Liam Carr (Frmt) ; 56.7 (4-2)(11-12) Heat 5 - Stuart Robson ; Richie Worrall ; Fernando Garcia ; Theo Pijper ; 57.9 (3-3)(14-15) Heat 6 - Rene Bach ; Richard Lawson ; Thomas Jorgensen ; Kasper Lykke ; 58.2 (5-1)(19-16) Heat 7 - Fernando Garcia ; Aaron Summers ; Kevin Doolan ; Matthew Wethers ; 58.9 (5-1)(24-17) Heat 8 - Theo Pijper ; Rene Bach ; Danny Ayres ; Liam Carr(F) ; 58.1 (3-3)(27-20) Heat 9 - Richie Worrall ; Kasper Lykke ; Fernando Garcia ; Thomas Jorgensen ; 57.5 (4-2)(31-22) Heat 10 - Richard Lawson ; Kevin Doolan ; Rene Bach ; Matthew Wethers ; 57.5 (4-2)(35-24) Heat 11 - Aaron Summers ; Theo Pijper (TR) ; Stuart Robson ; Fernando Garcia ; 57.3 (3-5)(38-29) Heat 12 - Kevin Doolan ; Richie Worrall ; Kasper Lykke ; Danny Ayres ; 58.2 (2-4)(40-33) Heat 13 - Aaron Summers ; Thomas Jorgensen ; Richard Lawson ; Stuart Robson(R) ; 57.1 (4-2)(44-35) Heat 14 - Richie Worrall ; Kasper Lykke ; Fernando Garcia ; Matthew Wethers ; 58.0 (4-2)(48-37) Heat 15 - (re-run)Aaron Summers ; Richard Lawson ; Kevin Doolan ; Kasper Lykke ; Theo Pijper (XT) 58.3 (5-1)(53-38)