Last week's track work started rather soggily as we were rained off on Wednesday 17th, although we did take a quick look at another of Colin Meredith's notings - a large circular concrete manhole just behind the safety fence on the apex of the first and second bend. This had been partially covered by part of an old fence board but it was decreed that as it projected aboce the ground surface it would have to be filled in around its edges and a larger, more permanently fixed cover attached.
Friday dawned cold and very windy. Having caught up on Wednesday's tasks of fence washing we then carried out the work on the errant manhole cover we set to laying the covers on the greyhound track. Just under an hour later we set about the covers once more as the wind had very efficiently removed them, far quicker than we ever could. However the use of many used rear tyres solved the problem, the only snag being that we had to recover them all to their normal resting place at the end of the meeting.
The meeting , against Workington in the Q-final of the KO Cup, incidentally the only PL trophy to elude us last year when we were eliminated in the semi-final by guess who - the Comets.
We were again honoured by a visit from Scottish speedway legend Steve Lawson again mechanicing for son Richard, part of a strong Comets line-up including Kev Doolan, Adrian Rymel and Andre Compton, arguably the best heat leader trio in the league.
Monarchs were thankfully firing on all cylinders and apart from strong performances from Kev Doolan and Andre Compton we had a fairly useful lead to take to Derwent Park (56-34) The visitors were also well served by an excellent performance at reserve from Craig Cook - definitely one to watch although he might have to tone down the colour of his wheels - a very bright yellow!
PS we lost the second leg by only 47-43 so roll on the Rye House Rockets in the semi-final
