COVENTRY romped to their biggest win of the season hitting the 60-point mark for the first time with a thoroughly convincing display against Lakeside at Brandon.
The Buildbase Bees put in a committed performance with some impressive scoring throughout the team, with the Hammers overly-reliant on a limited number of their riders.
Skipper Chris Harris led the Coventry scorechart with paid-16, but the middle-order was rock-solid and there was superb display at reserve from Aaron Summers.
The Australian was beaten in Heat 2 by Justin Sedgmen – who took great credit from his own performance for Lakeside – but then did not drop another point, twice getting the better of Hammers captain Davey Watt and teaming up with Harris for a deserved Heat 15 5-1.
In fairness to the visitors, they didn’t enjoy the best of luck, especially with losing former Bees rider Stuart Robson in a heavy Heat 4 crash when he tangled with Michal Szczepaniak as Coventry’s Pole tried to defend second place.
Szczepaniak was disqualified but Robson was taken to hospital for examination and with a facial injury, although early indications are encouraging.
That incident occurred during a run of four Coventry 5-1s in five races, one of which saw the Hammers’ Peter Karlsson be outdone by Summers and Kenni Larsen when taking a tactical ride.
The second double-pointer fared only a little better for the visitors, who were unfortunate as they had made good starts only for Szczepaniak to fall on turn two – and in the re-run Summers roared around the outside to limit Watt to four points.
Lakeside’s night was summed up when Watt dropped a chain when leading Heat 13, but that takes nothing away from Coventry’s display with all six of their riders showing a willingness to get stuck in – and they gave the score an emphatic feel with three 5-1s in the last three races.
Summers said: “That was my best meeting so far. I made a bit of a mistake in my first ride and it was hard to catch up, but we changed the set-up a bit, went back to what we had at the start of the year and it was good.
“You have to get on with it however the track is, there’s nothing you can do about it, and after they’d done some prep on it, it got better towards the end of the night.
“I quite like coming to the Elite League tracks because some of them have a lot more dirt on them which I’m not bothered about, and doing this league makes me a lot sharper at the starts!
“It was a good team performance, and probably the first time we’ve had everyone on form. We’ve missed that, we’ve had one or two riders struggling or being out, and a night like tonight shows we can do it.â€
BUILDBASE BEES 60: Chris Harris 15+1, Edward Kennett 12+2, Aaron Summers 11+3, Kenni Larsen 11+2, Adam Roynon 7+1, Michal Szczepaniak 4+1, Scott Nicholls r/r.
LAKESIDE 31: Justin Sedgmen 11+1, Davey Watt 8, Peter Karlsson 8, Stuart Robson 2, Kim Nilsson 1, Jonas Davidsson 1, Robert Mear 0.
BUILDBASE BEES 60 Chris Harris 2 3 2* 2 3 3 = 15+1 Adam Roynon R 3 3 1* = 7+1 Edward Kennett 3 2* 3 2 2* = 12+2 Kenni Larsen 2* 3 2* 1 3 = 11+2 Scott Nicholls Rider Replacement Aaron Summers 1* 3 3 2* 2* = 11+3 Michal Szczepaniak 2 X 1 X 1* = 4+1
LAKESIDE 31 Davey Watt 3 1^ 4 R R = 8 Kim Nilsson 1 0 0 = 1 Peter Karlsson R 1^ 3 3 1 = 8 Jonas Davidsson 1 0 0 0 = 1 Stuart Robson 2 = 2 Justin Sedgmen 3 1 2 2 1* 1 1 = 11+1 Robert Mear 0 R 0 0 0 = 0
