On a beautiifully sulty summer evening, the Wightlink Islanders produced a scorching performance to totally overwhelm the King's Lynn Barracudas 59-36 in their National League clash last night in a match they totally dominated from start to finish.

And that victory has moved them up to third place in the league standings (go to http://www.british-speedway.co.uk/nltable09.html ), just two points behind the current leaders, the Weymouth Wildcats.

Skipper Nick Simmons and his men had promised to avenge the heavy defeat they suffered in the away match against the Barracudas last month in a match that saw them finish with just four riders and the Wightlink Islanders certainly gained revenge for that last night and did it in style.

Simmons led by example dropping just one point out of a possible 15 in his five rides and setting a new National League track record of 68.9secs for four laps around the 385 metre Ashey Road circuit in heat 4 and both Ben Hopwood (12) and Tom Brown (8+4) completed their four rides without being headed by a King's Lynn rider.

There was some superb racing served up by both sides throughout the match, the undoubted highlight coming in heat 7 when the visitors top rider Adam Allott had blasted from the tapes leaving Simmons trying everything he knew from then on to find a way past him both inside and outside before he finally squeezed through the narrowest gap that Allott had left him on the last bend to grab the win by a wheel!

Terrific stuff by the Wightlink Islanders skipper typifyng the fighting spirit both he and team managers Chris Hunt and Kevin Shepherd have instilled throughout the side, a spirit all in the cmp will see them qualify for the end-of-season playoffs by finish in the top four in the final league standings.

"Make no mistake we have moulded a very good side together here," said Hunt after the match, "and whilst we aren't being tipped by most 'experts' to emerge as league champions this year, that suits us fine for we'll just continue winning matches and picking up the points with no pressure thrust upon us in the process.

"The whole team were simply awesome tonight and never looked in any danger of being beaten from the time Ben (Hopwood) and Tom (Brown) scorched to a maximum 5-1 victory in the very first race of the night.

"We now go to Buxton on Sunday in confidennt mood after thumping King's Lynn tonight and whilst we know beating the Derbyshire side on their home circuit will be a tall order, if we ride as well as we did tonight, there's no reason why we can't win there."

LAST NIGHT'S MATCH DETAILS:

Wightlink Islanders 59 King's Lynn Barracudas 36

National League

Wednesday June 30

WIGHTLINK ISLANDERS SCORERS: Nick Simmons 14, Chris Johnson 12+1, Ben Hopwood 12, Tom Brown 8+4, Brendan Johnson 7+3, Rikki Mullins 5, Scott Meakins 1.

KING'S LYNN SCORERS: Adam Allott 15, Adam Lowe 8+1, Byron Bekker 6, Darren Mallett 4, Scott Campos 2+2, Rhys Naylor 1, Chris Widman 0.

TOM BACK ON SUNDAY...

Popular reserve Tom Hill, who has been out of action for a couple of weeks after breaking a knuckly on his left hand in a crash at King's Lynn, had a few laps after last night's match and declared himself fit to return to the side in the away match at Buxton this Sunday.

It means that Scott Meakins makes way to accommodate Tom's return but joint manager Kevin Shepherd was keen to point out thaat Scott still figures in the club's long term plans explaining, "Scott is only 16 years old so time is very much on his side.

"I've explained that to him and that we are very pleased with the progress he's making at this stage of his racing career."

LOOKING AHEAD TO NEXT WEEK...

Next Tuesday (July 7) sees the staging of the Annual 1000cc sidecar event at the Wave 105FM Stadium - The Solent Sidecar Speedway Championship featuring the top UK sidecar crews giving their all aboard their 1000cc highly tuned 150Bhp outfits with no brakes, no gears and no fears!

Usual start time of 7.30pm.

AND THEN - THE BIG ONE AS TEST ACTION COMES TO THE ISLE of WIGHT!

We as a club are very proud to be staging a first for us all on July 14 - a YOUNG SPEEDWAY GB v YOUNG AUSTRALSIANS Under 21 Test Match. It's the third match in what is a five match series being raced around the country and we're very much hoping that our very own duo of Ben Hopwood and Brendan Johnson will have impressed the selectors sufficiently to be selected to race in the match and indeed the series.