The Readypower Panthers again showed great resilience and strength in depth to battle to hard-fought eight point victory over visitors Lakeside, despite the best efforts of the mechanical gremlins!
Despite machinery problems for no fewer than 4 home riders, each and every one of the Panthers septet registered a heat win and despite the closeness of the scoreline, the visitors only managed three race wins.
The Panthers were again inspired by Aussie ace Troy Batchelor, who was beaten only once by an opponent on his way to a paid-13 haul. Winter signing Linus Sundström had his best meeting at the Showground with 10 from four rides, collecting the Man of the Match award from the Panthers promotion on his way, and showed no signs of the broken thumb suffered in Sweden three weeks ago.
As has become customary for the home side, a slow start meant that it wasn't until heat 6 where they took the lead but they never looked back from that point, with Nicki Pedersen teaming up with Sundström for a big 5-1 in heat six, nudging the home side ahead.
It was heat nine that proved to be the pivotal race in the meeting though, as Polish duo Krzysztof Buczkowski and Kacper Gomolski secured a 5-1over Stuart Robson and Rob Mear to put some breathing space between themselves and the away side.
A 5-3 heat advantage for the visitors in heat 14, with former Panther Piotr Swiderski gaining double points, meant that the home side needed to avoid a last heat deficit in order to claim all three points. Troy Batchelor again proved to be the Panthers hero as he battled his way to the front and rode a stunning four laps to hold off the away duo, with Buczkowski unlucky not to pick up a point.
Man of the match Sundström was happy to tally his highest score at the Showgoround, but still feels there's more to come: "I felt good on the bike tonight and I can feel myself getting better here with every heat. Tonight I had a good setup and I think I am slowly getting used to the track.
"I wouldn't say that I'm fully dialled in yet, there is still more I can do. We haven't ridden at home for three weeks before tonight and that doesn't help, but I think that it will be better when we have a run of meetings."
The Swedish ace has a World under-21 qualifying round at the weekend before he lines up for the Panthers at Eastbourne on Monday, and he is relishing the chance to hit some form. He said:"In a way, its been good not to be riding a lot recently because it has given my thumb a chance to heal, but now I'm looking forward to getting in the meetings.
"I have a qualifier at Malmö at the weekend and that's a meeting I want to make sure I do well in. I want to get to the finals this year and the first step is this meeting. I haven't actually ridden at Eastbourne before but I quite like the small tracks so hopefully I can get some points and the team can get a win. We'll give it our all."
The Panthers travel to Arlington on Monday (23rd) to take on the Eastbourne Eagles in Sky's televised meeting, before Elite League new boys Birmingham visit the Showground on Thursday (May 26).