There was disappointment at Leicester on Saturday night (20th. August) for the duo representing Mildenhall Speedway – proudly sponsored by Manchetts Rescue and Recovery – in the National League Pairs.

Jason Edwards and Jack Kingston failed by the narrowest of margins to qualify out of their Group and into the knock-out stages of the Pairs event – with an unlucky fall by Kingston in heat 8 proving the deciding factor.

The meeting began with the Leicester circuit catching out almost all the competing riders (save the home duo, the Thompson Twins, Dan & Joe who practice regularly on this track).  Battling to deal with drought conditions which had left the shale surface very dry, the Beaumont Park track curator had added extra clay into the mix and with a damper atmosphere on the preceding couple of days there was some difficulties with the heavy track, experienced especially early on in proceedings.

The Fen Tigers pairing were out in heat 2 which turned into a race as bizarre as anyone could remember seeing – their opponents were the Kent Royals.  First to tumble was Sam Woolley for Kent on the second bend, both man and bike fortuitously for the progress of the race, sliding right off the track through the pit side entrance!  Meanwhile, his partner Ben Morley after getting into difficulty exiting bend two was juddering to a near stop before somehow getting started again.  This had allowed Kingston to join his skipper Edwards at the front only for the troublesome second corner to send Jack to the deck; he hurriedly remounted and such were Morley’s machine woes was able quickly to overhaul his opponent.  Meanwhile coming around for another circuit the always silky smooth Edwards also very nearly came a cropper on that same bend two – doing a complete 360 degree turn but holding it together to move onto taking the chequered flag.  With Kingston in second it was the perfect start – a 7-2 (under the 4-3-2-0 scoring system used in this Pairs event). 

There was then a long gap before Jason & Jack were out again in heat 8 – longer than that would be normally be due to lengthy, much-needed track works and then a delay while the sun set, after its low position in the sky was causing vision problems for the riders.

The opponents in heat 8 were ones very familiar to the travelling Mildenhall faithful: the Oxford pair were both members of last year’s Fen Tigers NDL winning squad, Jordan Jenkins & Sam Hagon.  Normally one would expect the battle between the rival number ones, Edwards and Jenkins to be vital; but in this format it’s far more about who finishes third rather than who wins (an arguably flawed-concept) and though Jason did have to concede defeat to Jenkins the story of the heat and of the whole meeting was all about the hugely unfortunate fall affecting Kingston.

Jack had made a superb passing movement of Hagon, with the momentum taking him into second place behind the fast gating Jenkins.  Calamity though, as he fell going int bends three and four – and though Kingston hurriedly remounted again this time there was no catching Hagon and the 6-3 put Oxford in the box seat.

A further 6-3 over Kent (the makeweights of the Group by this stage) meant that in heat 12 the Fen Tigers pairing needed to score more than surprise packets Plymouth Centurions to progress into the semi finals.  Sadly, Kingston’s fall this time happened on bend one and though remounting there was no way back, with his former Lakeside Young Hammers’ team mate Rhys Naylor (having perhaps the best meeting of his career) taking the third place, meaning the Devonians got a decisive 5-4 heat advantage.  There was scant consolation that Edwards produced the ride of the night to get past Adam Roynon on the back straight of the last lap in the rerun.

So, that was it, 14 points to the Fen Tigers would’ve been enough for second place in Group ‘A’. but in the closer contested Group ‘B, Oxford were on 15 and Plymouth the surprise winners on 16.

The other Group had seen hosts Leicester Lion Cubs, represented by the Thompson twins storm to an untroubled maximum 21 points but there was an even bigger shock than Plymouth’s win in Group ‘B’ with the NDL’s basement side Armadale Devils overhauling highly-fancied Berwick Bullets & a very out of sorts Belle Vue Colts to take second place behind the hosts.

The semis saw the big favourites Leicester deal decisively with the Jenkins threat from Oxford, while though Roynon was imperious to win semi final two, an unfortunate first bend fall by Naylor (who’d hoped in vain that the ref might exercise the discretion to put all four back in the run off) destroyed the race as a meaningful competition.

And there was little in the way of competition anywhere in truth when the home advantaged Thompson brothers were in full flow and they routinely took the honours with yet another maximum over the Scots in the Grand Final.

Group ‘A’

Leicester Lion Cubs 21 (D. Thompson 9+3 [PM]; J. Thompson 12[M])
Belle Vue Colts 8 (J. Smith 8; H. McGurk 0)
Berwick Bullets 12 (L. Crang 3+1; G. Blair 9)
Armadale Devils 13 (E. Kelly 5; T. Woolley 8)

Group ‘B’

Kent Royals 9 (B. Morley 9; S. Woolley 0)
MILDENHALL FEN TIGERS 14 (Jason Edwards 11; Jack Kingston 3+1)
Oxford Chargers 15 (J. Jenkins 11; S. Hagon 4)
Plymouth Centurions 16 (A. Roynon 10; R. Naylor 6+2)

Heat details

Group ‘B’ only
Ht2) Edwards; Kingston (fell rem.), Morley, S. Woolley fell  66.75  [MFT 7; KR 2]
Ht4) Roynon, Jenkins, Naylor, Hagon  62.65 [MFT 7; KR 2; OC 3; PC 6]
Ht6) Morley, Roynon, Naylor, S. Woolley (fell) 63.31 [MFT 7; KR 6; OC 3; PC 11]
Ht8) Jenkins, Edwards, Hagon, Kingston (fell rem.) 61.40  [MFT 10; KR 6; OC 9; PC 11]
Ht10] Jenkins, Morley, Hagon, S. Woolley  61.68 [MFT 10; KR 9; OC 15; PC 11]
Ht12) Edwards, Roynon, Naylor, Kingston (fell rem.) 62.41  [MFT 14; KR 9; OC 15; PC 16]

Semi-final 1: Leicester beat Oxford 7-2

Semi-final 2: Armadale beat Plymouth 5-4

Grand Final: Leicester beat Armadale 7-2

Winners: Leicester Lion Cubs; 2nd. Armadale Devils; 3rd. Plymouth Centurions