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Elite League A Fixture : Thursday 13th May 2010
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The Hammers went into this match at Foxhall Stadium with their new No.1 Lee Richardson making his 2010 debut for the Club. However, there was doubt over his fitness following his crash at King’s Lynn the previous night in the British Semi Final. Those doubts were, thankfully, short lived as Lee sped to victory in the opening heat over the Witches No.1 Scott Nicholls. This was after Stuart Robson had touched the tapes with his helmet at the first time of asking and had to come off a 15 metre handicap in the re-run.
That shared opening heat was followed by a 4-2 to the Hammers in heat 2 thanks to a great start from Daniel Davidsson. Paul Hurry picked up a point after Dawid Stachyra took a tumble.
A shared heat 3 saw Jonas Davidsson and Kauko Nieminen take the minor places behind Daniel King. JD did well following the anguish of his best engine blowing up on the stand during the pre match warm up of the bikes.
Adam Shields got the first of his three heat wins in heat 4 with his partner Daniel Davidsson following him home after Robert Miskowiak took a fall.
Heat 5 was shared and then in heat 6 it was the turn of Adam Shields to get a victory over Scott Nicholls. He had to do this the hard way by coming from the back. With Paul Hurry getting third place after Oliver Allen fell the resultant 4-2 to the Hammers meant that they now led by eight points.
That eight point lead became ten when JD claimed victory in heat 7 and Kauko third. The Witches immediately nominated Oliver Allen for a ‘Tactical Ride’ in the next heat and managed to just get the win in a very close finish ahead of Robbo. That 7-2 in favour of the Witches reduced the Hammers lead to just five points.
The Witches captain, Daniel King, was unbeaten at that stage but that unbeaten run soon came to an end when the Hammers captain, Adam Shields, beat him in heat 9 to claim his third win of the night. With Paul Hurry gaining third place following Carl Wilkinson falling the Hammers lead moved up to seven points.
Heats 10 and 11 both saw 4-2 heat advantages to the Witches so with just four heats remaining the Hammers lead was reduced to only three points. That advantage remained the same following shared heats 12 and 13. Allen won heat 12 whilst Lee Richardson took the chequered flag in heat 13.
Heat 14 was going to the vital for both sides. With Witches reserve Carl Wilkinson already having taken his maximum of seven rides they had to use their other reserve Dawid Stachyra, who had scored just one point from his previous three outings. The Witches did, however have Daniel King in this heat and he had already eight out of a possible nine points from his three rides.
The Davidsson brothers, Jonas and Daniel, represented the Hammers and went into the heat knowing that a 4-2 heat advantage to them would give the Hammers victory. They did better than the 4-2 speeding to a maximum 5-1 heat advantage.
The Hammers, therefore, went into the final nominated heat in the knowledge that they had won the meeting but they still needed the minimum of a 3-3 to ensure the maximum of four League points. The Hammers lost the toss for gate positions and the Witches chose the more favourable gates 1 and 3. Nicholls was off gate 1, Lee off gate 2, Oliver Allen off gate 3 with JD off gate 4.
The Hammers plan was for Lee to attempt to get the win but if Nicholls got away from the start for him to team ride with JD to keep Allen at the back. Nicholls gated and the plan worked with Lee team riding with JD for all four laps to ensure the shared heat and the maximum 4 league points.
Those four League points moved the Hammers up into second place in the League table behind Poole to set up perfectly Friday night’s League match between the top two Clubs at the Hammers Arena-Essex Raceway.
The victory against the witches was a good all round team performance with Hammers riders claiming eight out of the fifteen heat wins plus with only five last places they showed their superiority over their local rivals.
 Related Link: Four league points at Ipswich : Match Details
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