This coming Sunday, the Buxton Hitmen will be looking to see off the challenge of the Weymouth Wildcats when the two teams meet in the Conference League.
The home side have won their last three meetings around their Hi-Edge circuit and will be mindful that the Wildcats are capable of coming to Buxton and taking the league points. They have been victorious in the past although the visitors from the South Coast had a nightmare last year. Having turned up short-handed, they then lost two riders through injury during the meeting and their three remaining men battled bravely before going down to a twenty-point defeat 55 points to 35.
Buxton will be without young Jack Roberts after he injured a delicate part of his anatomy in a crash at Birmingham a fortnight ago and the friction burns he received necessitated a trip to Wythenshawe Hospital for treatment. He had a skin graft last Thursday and has been allowed home to recuperate but is still very sore and he will not be riding on Sunday. It is a situation that the Hitmen have been used to this year as both Roberts and top man John Branney have been unavailable for some meetings due to their commitments with teams in the Premier League. News on Buxton’s other injured rider, Danny Hodgson is that he has visited a specialist about his arm injury and sadly the diagnosis is that he has to have an operation to pin the broken bone. Hodgson, who recently got married, is obviously gutted as he has missed almost the entire season and he had put in a lot of hard work of the winter, both personally and with his equipment, with the aim of having a good year.
Sunday’s meeting starts at 3pm and will be another entertaining encounter as Weymouth will be led by former Buxton rider Karl Mason and have firepower from a couple of Premier League riders of their own in Andrew Bargh from the Isle of Wight and Roberts’s Birmingham team-mate Jay Herne. Their trump card might be at reserve where Kyle Newman has been in great form of late and he scored six points from seven rides in that eventful meeting last August in only his second league outing.
The Hitmen’s flying reserve Gareth Isherwood has moved up into the top five due to his fantastic performances with Lewis Dallaway dropping down to fill one of the reserve spots. Isherwood, from Cadishead near Manchester, has been on fire of late and topped it off with a six-ride paid maximum last home meeting against the play-off bound Plymouth Devils. With the Wildcats also after a play-off spot, this Sunday’s meeting will be just as exciting with both teams desperate for the points.
