John Walsh reports from Derwent Park

Last updated 12:06, Monday, 12 May 2008

Workington Comets 54 Reading Racers 36: After edging-out the current Premier League champions a week earlier, Workington Comets handed-out a more emphatic defeat to the title favourites.

Tight squeeze: Comets’ Kauko Nieminen, red helmet, contests the first corner of heat 15 with Reading's Ulrich Ostergaard during Saturday's match at Derwent Park

It had needed a last-heat decided to see-off Rye House Rockets at Derwent Park but on Saturday victory was assured by a 5-1 in heat thirteen.

Another heat maximum and a share of the points in the last race of the night pushed the Comets 18 points clear.

In the old days that would have been good enough to earn the Comets the bonus point as they had lost 54-39 at Smallmead last month. But this season the emphasis is on making sure you win your home matches and any success on opposition territory will earn three points.

For Workington the secret of their comfortable victory was solid scoring through the order – with the heat leaders all in double figures; the reserves producing 14 points between them and the second-strings contributing nine more.

Reading, by contrast, were sadly short of points in key areas and they were heavily under pressure with reserve options.

Guest Ross Brady looked completely dejected by the time he failed to get away from the start of his third and final outing without earning a single point.

Ex-Comet Tom Brown was also a reserve guest and his three third places were helped by John Branney’s fall, Tomas Suchanek’s engine failure and Brady’s exclusion. It didn’t help the Racers that Suchanek also failed to score in four outings and number two Chris Mills could only collect three third places.

Reading relied heavily on ex-Comet Ulrich Ostergaard, captain Mark Lemon and the experienced Tom P. Madsen as between them they harvested 30 of the 36 team points.

Ostergaard won three races in his 13 points and his only two defeats were at the hands of home skipper Kauko Nieminen.

But it was Ostergaard’s surge round the outside in the final race of the night which proved to be the highlight of the meeting and, as one fan observed afterwards – “Worth the admission price on its own.” He got his revenge on the Workington skipper by passing Nieminen on the second bend of the last lap for an outstanding win.

The Racers were on the second leg of their northern tour, which had seen them beaten by the in-form Edinburgh Monarchs on Friday night by just six points. They clearly expected to run the Comets close but on the night had too many unreliable performers.

James Wright, back on familiar territory as a guest for the injured Daniel Nermark, had started with a second place behind Lemon but wasn’t going to be headed second time out as he swept to the fastest time of the season (63.9) in beating Madsen.

Reading actually led 4-2 after the first heat as Barry Burchatt lost third place after a wobble on the last lap and Chris Mills nipped through. But a comfortable 5-1 for the Comets in the reserve race, awarded by referee Jim McGregor after Reading guests Brady and Brown tangled on the last lap, put Comets in front.

It was a lead they never looked like losing as Reading could only manage one heat advantage after that – a 4-2 when Nieminen was second to Lemon ahead of Mills.

Although new recruit Burchatt had started with a zero he beat Brown for third in heat six and then collected his first paid win in heat eight.

With another third place in the tenth heat Burchatt finished the night on four paid six, and was always competitive to suggest that he can be a steady recruit to the Comets’ cause.

But the young man who is capturing the imagination of the Workington fans is Bolton schoolboy Joe Haines. He followed-up his 12 point haul at Scunthorpe on Friday with another eight points against the Racers. He just took his four programme rides and won two of them while collecting third places, not far behind the main battles between Ostergaard and Carl Stonehewer in heat seven and Stonehewer and Lemon in heat eleven.

Unsurprisingly, in view of their problems at reserve, Reading have snapped-up the young man for Monday night’s clash at Smallmead against Sheffield.

Match Facts

Workington Comets: James Wright 10; Barry Burchatt 4, Kauko Nieminen 11, Charles Wright 5; Carl Stonehewer 10, Joe Haines 8, John Branney 6.

Reading Racers: Mark Lemon 9, Chris Mills 3, Ulrich Ostergaard 13, Tomas Suchanek 0, Tom P. Madsen 8, Tom Brown 3, Ross Brady 0.