COVENTRY will take a six-point lead to Perry Barr for the second leg of their KO Cup semi-final next week after a hard-fought encounter against Birmingham at Brandon.
The Buildbase Bees always looked the likely winners on home shale but they were prevented from extending their lead into tie-winning territory by the dogged Brummies – although the margin should still give Bees plenty of confidence, as they ride Birmingham’s circuit well.
Bees provided ten of the regular fifteen heat wins, but Birmingham made good use of the KO Cup’s ‘man on man’ tactical rules, and kept in contention thanks to a fine display from ex-Coventry man Josh Auty with fellow Bees asset Ben Barker coming up with a strong finish to the meeting.
The early stages were close with Scott Nicholls winning his first two rides, but Bees were prevented from opening an advantage by a 5-1 to the Brummies reserves in Heat 2.
The lead did go up to six points when Chris Harris and Aaron Summers took advantage of mechanical trouble for Auty in Heat 6 after Martin Smolinski had fallen, and Heat 8 provided plenty of drama with Michal Szczepaniak holding off Nicolas Covatti as Summers tried every way to find a route through.
With the Bees eight-up, the Brummies called for a match-race, and Auty neatly slipped inside Nicholls off turn two to reduce the arrears by three points with the Coventry man nearly coming to grief as he tried to respond.
Harris and Summers, who enjoyed a most impressive performance, both overhauled Sebastian Ulamek in Heat 10 for a 5-1 as Bees began to exert control, but Auty kept a hard-chasing Harris back in Heat 12 to peg Bees at a seven-point margin.
Two Coventry 4-2s followed, the second of which came after a fine first lap by Szczepaniak in Heat 14 with Josef Franc gaining a point when Covatti fell – but that triggered another match race, in which Barker used the favourable outside gate to get the better of Harris.
Barker and Auty also managed a 4-2 in the last race, split by Nicholls, which leaves the tie still very much up for grabs as the teams head back to Birmingham next Thursday.
Summers said: “I didn’t actually feel as quick as I could be, but we made a change to sort it out, and it was just a shame that I spun at the start of Heat 15.
“Hopefully a six-point lead will be enough for us. You have to look at how we rode at Birmingham earlier in the year, without Bomber and Scott, we certainly didn’t have a full-strength team and we still did well so hopefully if we’re at full strength we should do it.
“Everyone is riding pretty well at the moment, we can all fire, and if we do we’ll win it. It would be good to get into the Final – at this time of year, the more meetings the better.â€
BUILDBASE BEES 51: Scott Nicholls 12, Aaron Summers 9+1, Chris Harris 8+1, Edward Kennett 8, Michal Szczepaniak 7, Kenni Larsen 4+2, Josef Franc 3.
BIRMINGHAM 45: Josh Auty 13+1, Ben Barker 11, Martin Smolinski 8+1, Nicolas Covatti 6, Danny King 5, Sebastian Ulamek 2+1, Bjarne Pedersen r/r.
BUILDBASE BEES 51 Chris Harris 1 3 2* 2 (0) = 8+1 Aaron Summers 3 2* 1 3 0 = 9+1 Edward Kennett 0 3 2 3 = 8 Kenni Larsen 2* 1 F 1*= 4+2 Scott Nicholls 3 3 (0) 3 1 2 = 12 Josef Franc 0 2 0 1 = 3 Michal Szczepaniak 1 3 0 3 = 7
BIRMINGHAM 45 Danny King 2 0 0 3 0 = 5 Bjarne Pedersen Rider Replacement Josh Auty 3 2 R (3) 1* 3 1 = 13+1 Ben Barker 0 1 2 0 2 (3) 3 = 11 Sebastian Ulamek 0 1* 1 0 = 2+1 Martin Smolinski 2* 1 2 1 2 = 8+1 Nicolas Covatti 3 1 2 F = 6
