STOKE Easy Rider Potters went down to a 51-39 defeat in their opening City Gearboxes National League opener against Birmingham at Perry Barr on Wednesday night.
The Potters got off to the worst possible start with skipper Jon Armstrong suffering a carburettor problem in his opening ride allowing home pair Adam Ellis and Adam Kirby to gain a maximum 5-1 heat advantage with the Brummies extending their lead in heat two with a 4-2 advantage to lead 9-3 after two races.
The Potters clawed their way back into the meeting with a 5-1 from Danny Phillips and Ryan Terry-Daley in heat three and then levelled the scores up at 15-15 with Armstrong and Chris Widman gaining a 4-2 in heat five.
Birmingham again struck with two heat advantages in the next two races with a 5-1 from Ellis and Kirby over Lee Payne who had to start off 15 metres after he failed to beat the two minutes time allowance and they extended their lead in heat seven with a 4-2 to lead 24-18 at the halfway stage of the meeting.
Shaun Tedham took victory in heat eight from Alex Wilson with Widman third for a Potters 4-2 after Kirby has been disqualified for bringing his partner down at the first time of asking.
Two successive 4-2 heat win for Birmingham opened their lead up to 8 points but the Potters just couldn’t find a way of reducing the deficit in the latter heats in order to gain an away point as Ellis and home skipper Tom Perry raced to maximum points in the final heat.
Potters skipper Jon Armstrong commented “We are obviously disappointed that we didn’t come away with anything from the meeting but there are encouraging signs and I feel we can turn things around. I suffered a carburettor problem in my first ride and then started to get going once we’d sorted it out but Birmingham have got a few meetings under their belts compared to us and we need to get some laps in and I’m sure we will be okay.”
Team boss Malcolm Vasey said “I know we can ride better than we did tonight, the slow start cost us dearly at the beginning of the meeting it was very disappointing to be 9-3 down after two races but we battled hard to get back into the meeting but it wasn’t enough and we are all disappointed not to come away with something.”
BIRMINGHAM 51: Adam Ellis 15, Zach Wajtknecht 14, Tom Perry 12+2, Adam Kirby 5+2, Alex Wilson 3, Harvie Banks 2, Sam Chapman R/R. STOKE 39: Danny Phillips 9, Jon Armstrong 9, Shaun Tedham 8+3, Lee Payne 6+1, Ryan Terry-Daley 4+1, Chris Widman 3, Ryan MacDonald 0. National League points: Birmingham 3 Stoke 0
