HITMEN 40 STOKE 50

Sunday August 13, 2017
The writing was on the wall at Hi-Edge as early as heat three when the visitors raced to a 10-point lead.

It was a lead they never relinquished and perfectly executed their plan to attack the heats where Buxton’s top two – Max Clegg (who remained unbeaten all afternoon) and Matt Williamson who made an uncharacteristic mistake in his first outing but was also relatively untroubled. The home sides reserves and second strings struggled and the lack of home outings told. The result left team Boss Jason Pipe an unhappy man.
‘In my time as Buxton team manager, that goes down as my most disappointing defeat so far. We had a good crowd and the lads knew it was a must win meeting if we are to avoid the wooden spoon again this season. But it just didn't happen for us. The score in the end showed just how much we are still missing that 6/7 points a meeting rider. We were a 3 rider team yesterday and that isn't good enough to win even home meetings. Fair enough all of Stoke's riders do have a liking for our track and 4 of them are ex Buxton riders, but we still should have beaten them yesterday and it's left me feeling very disappointed. No excuses that we haven't rode at home for 7 weeks, I won't accept that as an excuse for some of our riders’ performances. We lost this meeting in the first 3 races when we went 10 points down and over the last 12 races the score was 36-36! I don't know where our riders were in those first 3 races, but I know they certainly weren't at the races! Giving the opposition like that a head start, its like giving the opposition a 2 goal start in Football. You very rarely come back when your trailing like that. Fair play to the Stoke riders, they were so much more up for this meeting. They came and they all did their job and knew were our weaknesses were in the team and they took full advantage of that.’

Pipe added he wasn’t unfurling the white flag and accept bottom place just yet.

‘I still won't admit defeat yet, regarding getting off the foot of that league table, as we do have 4 winnable home meetings available and an away trip to Mildenhall on Sunday September 3rd, that I fancy us to grab at least a point from and I'm confident of an Away point at least when we go to Stoke in our other outstanding Away meeting, on a date still yet to be announced. Buxton seem to ride better against Stoke at Stoke than we do on our home track! I'm targeting a minimum of another 14 points, 20 in total, if we are to avoid that wooden spoon again.People may laugh at what I've said here about getting these points between now and the rest of the season, but I can't see why we can't. The riders need to keep believing in themselves and enjoying riding their bikes. I keep believing and remain positive because I have to. If I didn't, then there would be no point in me doing what I'm doing!’

BUXTON 40: Max Clegg 14+1, Matt Williamson 11+1, Tom Woolley 8, Lee Geary 3, Ryan Kinsley 2, Ben Woodhull 1+1, Jamie Halder 1.

STOKE 50: Tony Atkin 10+1, Ryan Terry-Daley 10, Paul Burnett 8+2, Luke Priest 7+3, Lee Dicken 7+1, Mitchell Davey 6+1, Shaun Tedham 2+1.