| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
|
|
Soundbites: 3rd July 2006
"It was a relief to finally get a win.
It was not the best of performances from certain quarters but I will settle for the two
points and the bonus point.
We still struggled a little and showed that our confidence is low but hopefully this
win will have lifted the team."
"He has shown an enormous amount of spirit and he has been on the pace. I think he will be a tremendous crowd-pleaser."
"I'm over the moon. The temperature was 28 degrees and it was a dust bowl, but we coped well.
To get a draw away from home when your star rider has an off night is a great achievement.
Gary looked a down on power. If he had won his first couple of races we would
have waltzed it."
"I didn't know it was so close but you always have to go out looking for a 5-1, whether
you are 30 points ahead or whatever.
It was a good job we got that maximum because Coventry got a 5-1 in the last race and we
could have lost the match."
"The bike runs fine in the pits, but it just wasn't happening on the track. Then my dad did something to the adjuster on the carb and it was like being on a different bike.
I could feel the difference straight away and my confidence was up again. It's so important to
have your head right as much as anything else in any meeting and finding that set-up, providing it continues to work, could improve my season."
"I always had faith in the team that we had put together for the Comets this year and
although we've had a good start, I honestly believe that we haven't seen the best from
the side.
I think there's still more to come and that we can improve on what we've achieved so far."
"It has been a very tough few weeks for me. I have had a lot of problems and just haven't
been scoring the points.
I could not understand why I have struggled so much because I had been taking extra
rides while at reserve and already competing in these races.
I have been pretty unlucky as far as mechanical trouble goes. In the last couple of
weeks alone I have blown one engine and seized another, and also snapped a chain.
Putting things like that right doesn't come cheaply and it is even harder when I am
not scoring the points out on the track. It has been an infuriating time but hopefully
I have turned the corner now."
"I want to apologise to the Newcastle fans for having to drop out of such an important
meeting so early. I thought I could take all four of my rides but I felt my right knee pop
at the first bend and there was no way I could continue."
"It was easily our best performance of the year as we didn't have a last place in any race and
that's not an easy feat against a team containing some star names.
Altogether, with bonus points, we will be paying our lads for 72 points tonight but would be
delighted to do that every meeting as it would mean we would be league champions."
"It was interesting to read in the papers that Peterborough were going to prepare a track
with plenty of grip. Grip is not what they produced and I should know, because I have
ridden at Ipswich for goodness knows how many years, when years ago there was real grip,
not just heavy shale as this was tonight.
The track was badly prepared, it's as simple as that and even the home riders were
unhappy with it at the start."
"It was a bit embarrassing. I fell on my backside and was struggling to sit on my bike
for the rest of the night. It's the first time I've seen Ashfield but it's a nice track
although next time I come here I won't be sitting so far back on the bike!"
"Joel has had a new lease of life. He has had some new equipment which has given him confidence to try more lines on the track."
"Home advantage played a massive part, but we have to put our hands up and say we
were beaten by two better teams on the day.
If we were going to go through the season unbeaten that would have been surprising.
But now we have been finally beaten, we have to stay positive.
We are still a good side."
"Mats said to me I didn't need to do the qualifiers although I told him I wanted to do it.
It means I have to finish in the top eight and I will do my best to achieve that."
"Clews's return was a real plus in what was quite an encouraging team performance.
He got a race win and two second places and though he was tiring, we gave him heat 15 as a
show of faith in his ability.
We held Newcastle for much of the meeting, but they got two 5-1s in heats 13 and 15
which made the score look a bit worse than it was."
"I used my favourite engine from last year. For whatever reason, I haven't been using it.
It has been sitting on the workshop floor all season.
I put the old one back in and it gave a dream ride.
The track was immaculate again and they were good, fun speedway rides."
"I take it as a compliment that Peterborough feel that they need some extra small track
practice so they can give a better account of themselves on Monday.
I then thought about the times we have raced at Peterborough recently when the track has
resembled a ploughed field. So what better way to practise riding on their track than by
using a field which I have organised.
And, if Leigh Lanham finds any potatoes in the field, I have given him permission to use
them for chips in the family's fish and chip shops."
This article was first published on 3rd July 2006
|
||||||||||||
| Please leave your comments on this article or on the site as a whole | |||||||||||||
