Last night (Friday) the Henderson Insurance Scunthorpe Scorpions secured a twelve-point advantage from the home leg of their Young Shield quarter-final with a 51-39 defeat of the Workington Comets at the Eddie Wright Raceway. 

It exceeds the ten-point target set by Promoter Rob Godfrey and sees the tie finely balanced for tonight’s (Saturday 4 October) second leg in Cumbria.  Leading scorer for the Scorpions was Richard Hall who dropped just one point from his five rides.

For once the Scorpions got off to a flying start.  Hall combined with Emiliano Sanchez in heat 1 for a 5-1 over Tomas Topinka and Charles Wright before the reserve pair of Ben Powell and Byron Bekker claimed a 4-2 in Heat 2.  However, the lead fluctuated between four and eight points until the penultimate race when Viktor Bergström and Ben Powell were able to claim a 5-1 over John Branney and former Scorpion Joe Haines.  It marked the end of a miserable night for Haines who had two engine failures and failed to beat a Scorpion all night.  It was a far cry from the twelve points he scored for the Comets on their league visit back in May.

With Haines and, to a lesser extent, former Grand Prix rider Carl Stonehewer struggling the Comet’s lower order riders produced some impressive rides to keep their team in the match.  Finnish reserve Tomi Reima was paid for nine points whilst Charles Wright combined with Branney for an unexpected 5-1 in heat 8.  The race produced some great racing before Branney managed to round both Scorpions on the final two bends.  One race later the Scorpions were out-gated but Bergström produced a thrilling ride of his own to work his way to the front.  It kept the gap at four points and that was doubled when Hall and Sanchez claimed a 5-1 in heat 10 after Wright crashed whilst in second place.

Hall was in exceptional form all night but he a maximum in Scorpions’ colours still evades him as Topinka finally kept him at bay when they met in heat 15.  Hall had worked his way from last to second but the chequered flag came a little too soon and he was just a bike length short of catching the Czech rider on the line.  However, the twelve point advantage to take into tonight’s second leg is significant and should give the side a very real chance of making it into the semi-finals.     

 Scunthorpe Scorpions’ Richard Hall  – “I don’t know hard I have to try for a maximum.  My first four rides I was very fast.  I beat Topinka twice and I thought I could beat him.  I just took the wrong gate in heat 15.  I should have taken gate two but that is the way it goes.  It is frustrating but we have a twelve point lead which is good.  We should get to the next round unless they do something drastic to the track.  We all seemed to get a good set-up in the (Premier League) Fours so let’s hope we can do it again tomorrow night and get through”

Scunthorpe Scorpions Viktor Bergström – “My first two rides were awful.  I’ve just spent fifteen hundred quid on an engine and I got it back, thinking it was going to go really well, but it was terrible.  It was my best engine, but it is totally different to what it was before, so we need to do something with it.  I swapped bikes and I got going.  I had two good rides and I’m happy I had those and we have a lead.  I like Workington but I thought the engine I’d just got back would go well there but I don’t think so.  Hopefully the spare bike will work there”.

Scunthorpe Scorpions 51
Richard Hall 14 (5 rides), Emiliano Sanchez 5+2 (4), Magnus Karlsson 9+1 (5), Viktor Bergström 7 (4), Carl Wilkinson 7 (4), Ben Powell 6+2 (4), Byron Bekker 3+1 (4)

Workington Comets 39
Tomas Topinka 15 (6 rides), Charles Wright 4 (4), Joe Haines 1 (4), Carl Stonehewer 6 (5), Tomi Reima 8+1 (6), John Branney 5+2 (5)