AFTER two successive victories the Stoke A.R. Richards Potters crashed to a 58 – 32 defeat against the Eastbourne Eagles in the Travel Plus National League at the Arlington Stadium on Saturday night.
Mitchell Davey was the only Potters race winner as he provided four race wins from his five rides to chalk up a 14-point haul with skipper Tony Atkin scored 7-points as the duo scored all but eleven of the Potters 32-point score.
Stoke took the lead in the opening heat with a 4-2 heat advantage from Davey and Shaun Tedham over Mark Baseby before the Eagles flew high as they quickly built up a 16-8 lead after four races. Davey haulted the rot in heat five as he took victory for a drawn heat before the Eagle launched into three further heat advantages as they opened up an 18-point lead at the midway point of the meeting.
The Potters improved slightly in the second half of the meeting as Luke Priest and David Speight and then Atkin and Ryan Terry-Daley provided drawn heats to stem the tide before Gerogie Wood lowered Davey’s colours for the first time on the night as the Eagles gained a 4-2 advantage with the Eagles leading 48-24 after 12 heats as Tom Brennan and Ben Hopwood chalked up a maxium heat win over Terry-Daley.
Davey won two of the final three heats with the Eagles gaining the only heat advantage in them in heat fourteen as Charley Powell defeated Atkin with Matt Bates third for a 4-2.
Potters team manager Malcolm Vasey said “The lads tried extremely hard on a very technical track and did not let their heads go down at any point. Eastbourne are an extremely good team especially around their home track and have a rider at reserve who even their own riders find difficult to beat in Tom Brennan who is riding extremely well, but we cannot take anything away from Eastbourne who deserved the win on the night. Mitchell Davey was a class act tonight for us tonight and Tony (Atkin) tried extremely hard as all the team did being fair and I’m sure we will bounce back in our next meeting. Not many if any teams will win at Arlington this year so we just have to dust ourselves down and move on to our next meeting.”
NATIONAL LEAGUE EASTBOURNE 58: Tom Brennan 15+2, Georgie Wood 12+1, Ben Hopwood 9+2, Mark Baseby 9+1, Charlie Powell 6, Matt Bates 5+1, Kelsey Dugard 2+1. STOKE 32: Mitchell Davey 14, Tony Atkin 7, Luke Priest 4, Ryan Terry-Daley 2+1, David Wallinger 2, Shaun Tedham 2, David Speight 1+1.