Monday September 11, 2023
PETERBOROUGH kept up their tremendous end-of-season run with a 54-36 home win over play-off qualifiers Wolverhampton.

The Crendon Panthers comfortably took all three points from the meeting at the East of England Arena, winning all but two of the races and offering their opponents little in the way of getting back into contention.

And the victory would have been even more emphatic but for a chain failure on the last bend of Heat 14 which cruelly denied flying reserve Ben Cook a paid maximum from five rides.

Vadim Tarasenko led the Panthers’ scoring with another fast and stylish display on his way to 13 points, beaten only by Luke Becker in Heat 7.

In-form Niels-Kristian Iversen added three wins in an 11-point haul, whilst Benjamin Basso won two races in a solid all-round team performance.

Panthers took control with 5-1s in Heats 2 and 4, the first from Cook and Jordan Jenkins with the latter neatly working his way through the traffic in the early stages.

Jenkins suffered mechanical trouble prior to Heat 4 but Cook came in to replace him and partnered Tarasenko to 5-1 over Ryan Douglas, who took an awkward tumble in the initial staging of the race.

Wolves hit back with a 5-1 from Sam Masters and Steve Worrall in Heat 5 but Panthers then recorded a run of five successive 4-2s with Iversen riding strongly to hold off Worrall in Heat 8 whilst they were denied a 5-1 in Heat 9 when Douglas split Basso and Chris Harris on the last lap.

But the 5-1 did come in Heat 11 from Tarasenko and Cook as they outpaced Masters and Worrall, making it 42-24 to effectively put the match beyond the visitors.

Becker notched a second win for Wolves in Heat 12 as he headed Basso whilst Zach Cook forced his way inside Jenkins on the last bend for a 4-2 with the Panthers racer coming down after the chequered flag, although thankfully with no injury.

Tarasenko controlled Heat 13 as guest Richard Lawson was squeezed out, whilst Heat 14 saw some vintage racing from skipper Chris Harris to overtake Rory Schlein and Leon Flint, although the 5-1 was lost with Ben Cook’s late misfortune.

But Panthers did finish with an advantage as they took a 4-2 from Heat 15, Tarasenko leading the way again whilst Iversen was narrowly denied a paid win by Becker, who made a good move on the inside coming off the second bend.

Manager Rob Lyon said: “Obviously it was a bit of a dead rubber for Wolves, but we wanted to win and keep the run going.

“It’s a strange situation because we couldn’t buy a win for the first two-thirds of the season, and now we’re winning in a canter, and you can see that with the team we have now.

“I’ve tweaked the line-up around a few times which you can do when you’ve got that sort of strength that you can just mess around with it a bit, and you’re not exposed in any areas.

“It’s been a pleasure, very enjoyable, and I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve said if we’d had this team and the start of the season we’d be in the play-offs – but that’s speedway.”

SPORTS INSURE PREMIERSHIP R2
PETERBOROUGH 54: Vadim Tarasenko 13, Niels-Kristian Iversen 11, Ben Cook 10+2, Benjamin Basso 8, Chris Harris 5, Richard Lawson 4, Jordan Jenkins 3+1.
WOLVERHAMPTON 36: Luke Becker 11, Ryan Douglas 7, Steve Worrall 6+2, Sam Masters 6+1, Rory Schlein 2+2, Zach Cook 2, Leon Flint 2.
Peterborough win the aggregate point