Peterborough Panthers won their first match of the season with a comprehensive and convincing victory over neighbours Ipswich.
But it wasn’t the fact that they won, it was the style in which they achieved it that satisfied the management and supporters alike, as every member of the team contributed solid points with the reserves combining for a fabulous paid 20, with Andrew Tully’s score of paid 12 only beaten on the night by Captain Niels Kristian Iversen.
The Witches have had better nights at Peterborough but they had no answer to the all round scoring from the home side although Jarek Hampel had his most productive Showground night for a while, and Danny King ensured he got his point over after being left out of the Panthers team this year.
But the home side got off to a great start with an opening 4-2 followed by a reserves maximum and from then on the pressure was off as they settled down quickly and just built on that start.
King halted the charge with a round the boards swoop to win the third, but Iversen started the night with an impressive victory in heat 4 whilst Swiderski took advantage of a collision with Hansen to snatch second after Stachrya had fallen.
Korneliussen quickly added the 5th with a determined ride against Hampel and the Panthers quickly extended that lead to 10 points with a 4-2 in heat 6.
King donned the first black and white helmet colour in heat 7 but an awful gate left him trailing and by the time he got around Kroner, Iversen and Tully were long gone with the second Panthers maximum stretching the Panthers lead to 14 points.
Ipswich made the better start to heat 8 but Hansen chased down and passed Stachrya and Dryml took advantage of Ipswich’s misfortunes to snatch third as Risager ground to a halt on the last bend.
Swiderski took the second tactical in heat 9 and took full advantage to record his only heat win of the night and after a shared heat 10 the Witches narrowed the deficit even further with Hampel lowering the colours of Iversen and Risager holding off Tully for another 4-2 in 11.
Korneliussen started well to take heat 12 but it was Hansen who took the applause as he refused to give up after a bad start to cruise past Stachrya and then spent the rest of the race waiting for the Wilkinson mistake that never came.
Iversen made it three wins out of 4 with an impressive swoop around the Ipswich pair in 13 and although Bjerre initially joined him, Hampel got it back with Bjerre just failing to snatch it back on the line.
King not unsurprisingly won the 14th despite some early pressure from the home pairing, whilst Hampel completed his good nights work with a heat 15 victory which would have been an Ipswich one/two if Iversen hadn’t snatched second place from King on the very last bend of lap 4.
Panthers have now broken their duck for 2009 and the press conference afterwards was actually enjoyable for the riders and supporters alike with team manager Trevor Swales very complimentary about his team’s performance.
Trevor Swales said: “I was very pleased with the riders performances tonight, they all scored well but I must mention the reserves Andrew and Kenneth who were both magnificent, we took a lot of the pressure of ourselves with a good start and we kept it going, everyone was starting better this week and with Zabik back next week we should only get better”.
Andrew Tully celebrated his first official match for the club with a thoroughly deserved man of the match award from meeting sponsors RAF Careers.