HITMEN 48 STOKE 41

Sunday April 21, 2013
The Buxton Hitmen started off their season in style on Sunday with a 48-41 win against the Stoke Potters.

It was a thrilling meeting packed full of drama on and off the track ending with a last heat decider against two ex Hitmen stars. The Hitmen had control of the meeting throughout but Stoke certainly put the pressure on and what started as a challenge meeting to blow away the cobwebs for the new Buxton side soon turned into a battle with all the action you could expect from two rival teams. There was everything from tapes infringements, high speed crashes, engine failures and immense wins. Hitmen Team Manager Jack Lee said the lads soon forgot it was a challenge meeting and not a league playoff final “the riders went at it hammer and tongs today, everyone put on a good show and ended up in one piece so that’s good and the main thing is we won which is a great start to the season for us, hopefully now we can kick on and get some more wins under our belts and start shooting up that league table. It was a great effort from our two boys in heat 15 coming first and second and clinching the meeting for us especially with the other two riders both being ex Hitmen. When I saw that Stoke were riding with both Robert Branford and Luke Priest in their side I knew it was going to be a hard meeting for us, especially with our two new riders who are in their first season of league speedway and inexperienced around here, but they turned out really well. Matt who is riding at reserve finished up 6 paid 7 so for a debut meeting that was a heck of a good result from him and Tom who was in the harder riding position at number 2 came up with 4 points. So all in all we were really pleased with those guys efforts and they can only improve from here on so looking at it we could be in for a super season. If Matt and Tom continue to improve it will make us a very strong team, we could surprise people this season. The pundits put us down as ending the season in 8th place and that’s what they said at the start of 2010 when we ended up winning all three trophies so let’s hope history repeats itself.”

It was well documented over the winter the financial difficulties the club has faced the last few seasons with doubts over the future of Buxton speedway but a bumper crowd headed to the highest track in England to see in the new season on Sunday and Jack says more local people should get behind the sport: “Get off your backsides and come up here and watch us. It’s a great sport, it’s a nice day out if the suns out of course and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It doesn’t cost the earth to get into the place and you’ll have a really good afternoons racing. We need some more support for the team, we’ve been here twenty years now and it still amazes me that people say have we got speedway in Buxton? It’s on the radio it’s in the papers, come up and support us and get behind our lads and let’s see if we can bring a bit more fame to Buxton, let’s get a few cups up here again.”

The team face league favourites the Isle of Wight on Sunday. Action as usual starts at 3pm.

Result:

BUXTON 48: Charles Wright 14, Adam McKinna 8+3, Chris Widman 7, Matt Williamson 6+1, Ryan Blacklock 5, Tom Woolley 4+1, Tony Atkin 4.


STOKE 41: Robert Branford 9+1, Lee Smart 9, Luke Priest 9, Shaun Tedham 4+1, Emerson Jones 4+1, Kyle Hughes 4, Luke Chessell 2+1.