Lakeside Hammers 49, Eastbourne Eagles 41
By COLIN MUNFORD
A TENSE final heat thriller saw Lakeside snatch all three points against a dogged Eastbourne side.
For much of the meeting the Eagles belied their poor form to run a five men Lakeside team close with a former Hammer proving to be a thorn in the home side.
Joonas Kylmakorpi is a rider that can light up any meeting and if he had performed like this for the Hammers then he probably wouldn’t be at Eastbourne now.
The Finland international rarely look troubled on his way to 14 points to remind the Hammers fans what might have been.
Without Swede Jonas Davidsson, injured on Thursday night in Poland, the Hammers started brightly but let their visitors back into the meeting with his brother Daniel disappointing with a pointless night.
Things were ominous for the Eagles as the Hammers looked invincible in their opening two heats with two maximums.
Matej Zagar got his first win of the night in heat three after a pointless heat one as he and guest Jason Doyle reduced the Hammers lead to six at 12-6.
But Adam Shields looked in imperious form as he hit back with a confident victory with Hurry beating fellow reserve Ricky Kling to restore the lead to eight points.
But in a topsy turvy start the Eagles responded with a maximum of
their own, taking advantage of a poor Daniel Davidsson, excluded after losing control of his bike and Kauko Nieminen unable to beat Lukas Dryml or Zagar.
But heat eight saw the Hammers respond and reopen that eight point gap
with Nieminen and Robson fastest out to the gate to fly to a maximum.
But the visitors would not budge and refused to give up and with two wins from Kylmakorpi in heats nine and 10 they clawed the gap back to just four at 32-28 to give the Hammers a real task on their shoulder for the rest of the meeting.
With the meeting still evenly balanced the Hammers pulled off a fine maximum in heat 13 with the experienced duo of Lee Richardson and Shields easily holding off Matej Zagar and a surprise last for Kylmakorpi.
A shared heat 14 set up a tense final heat decider if the Hammers were to take all three points and consolidate their second place in the table and it went down to the final corner.
Kylmakorpi flied off in the lead with Shields in second but it was a thrilling fight between Zagar and Richardson for that vital third place and after changing places throughout the heat Zagar’s last ditch attempt saw him fall and seal a vital victory for the Hammers.
Lakeside Hammers 49: Lee Richardson 10+2, Kauko Nieminen 7+2, Daniel
Davidsson 0, Adam Shields 15+1, Paul Hurry 8, Stuart Robson 9+3. Eastbourne Eagles 41: Matej Zagar 9, Lukas Dryml 6+3, Jason Doyle 10, Joonas Kylmakorpi 14, Ricky Kling 1, Chris Schramm 1.
l Hammers are back in action at Peterborough on Monday.