WOLVERHAMPTON 56 PETERBOROUGH 36 Monday 31st August - Elite League B
Panthers come away from Monmore Green pointless after another heavy defeat
Wolverhampton kept up the pressure on Swindon at the top of the league table with a fairly comprehensive victory over the Panthers as they completed their home fixtures.
The Wolves restricted Panthers to just three race wins all night as they again dominated proceedings right from the start, with a pre meeting shower making the track somewhat difficult early on.
Peterborough quickly found themselves 10 points down after 5 races and had no answer to their faster starting opponents in the first half off the match.
Referee Paul Carrington released the tapes very quickly in heat 1 with the home riders taking advantage of a poor start from the Panthers captain Iversen.
The Wolves pair looked good in heat 2 after again making the start but a mistake by Kerr let Bager through and he duly took advantage.
Woffinden and Skornicki left the Panthers pair for dead in the third leaving the Panthers 10 down after just 3 heats.
Heat 4 produced a complete turn around with Dryml and Korneliussen leaving the Wolves pair trailing, Proctor got by Korneliussen but their was no way past for Karlsson who clearly looked out of sorts at the rear.
Vissing made the better start to lead the 5th but was quickly passed by Woffinden, Iversen and finally Skornicki, all in the space of the first lap.
Heat 6 was shared with the Panthers pairing shutting out Klindt after Lindgren had shot away out front, and Karlsson slipped up the inside of early race leader Dryml in the 7th whilst Bjerre also passed his team mate to ensure a Panthers advantage owing to the fact he was on a tactical.
Dryml again gated to lead the 8th but Klindt quickly passed him and then Proctor did the same as Wolves extended their lead to 12 points.
The 9th again goes Wolves way with Korneliussen having no answer to Woffinden and Skornicki as they trap and go.
Klindt breaks the tapes at the first attempt to run the 10th and Wolves leave him in but off 15 metres, Lindgren traps and is away in the rerun with Klindt chasing down and passing Vissing for a Wolves 4-2. Iversen in as the second tactical in heat 11 makes a great start to lead into the corner but gets totally out of shape and falls, Following his exclusion Kerr joins Karlsson up front in the rerun for a Wolves maximum.
Heat 12 produced only the second shared heat of the match with Woffinden emerging from a tight first corner to win whilst his partner Proctor brought up the rear after nearly doing a 360 on the first corner.
Wolves looked to be increasing their lead as Lindgren led the 13th until dropping it on the first bend, the others did well to avoid him with Karlsson involved in a right scrap with Korneliussen at the time, and the referee awarded the race to the surprise of many.
Heat 14 produced Panthers only 5-1 of the match with Skornicki content to just chase the Panthers pairing whilst Kerr fell and remounted at the back.
Wolves finished the match off as they started with another 5-1 in heat 15 but were made to work hard for it as Iversen was the early leader. Lindgren passed him on the back straight on lap 1 with Woffinden joining him up front on lap 3.
Surprisingly, despite the fairly one sided score line only Woffinden emerged unbeaten although Lindgren would have undoubtedly joined him but for falling whilst leading the 13th.
Poor gating especially early on cost the Panthers a lot of points, but just three race winners’ sums up the performance very well and the Panthers will need to considerably up the performances if they are to pick up any points from their last two away matches.