POLISH star Krzysztof Kasprzak blasted back to top form as the Buildbase Bees overcame stubborn resistance from Wolverhampton to take a 50-43 victory over their local rivals at Brandon.
Kasprzak dropped just one point from five rides and collected crucial wins in Heats 13 and 15 over Wolves captain Tai Woffinden, currently second in the World Championship, to make sure Coventry took maximum points from the meeting.
Woffinden, in fact, was beaten three times during the evening – the first coming thanks to a remarkable effort by Bees guest Kozza Smith, who took a superb win over the British Champion in Heat 4.
And the guest booking of Smith proved crucial in the overall outcome as the in-form Berwick regular piled up a hugely impressive paid-15 from six rides.
Wolves, with captain Freddie Lindgren absent, appeared set for a heavy defeat when they went twelve points down after seven races – the Heat 7 5-1 to Coventry providing a memorable moment as Scott Nicholls and Stuart Robson surged either side of Adam Skornicki at the end of the first lap to relegate the Pole from first to third.
That was the Bees’ third 5-1 but their progress was checked in Heat 8 by Skornicki winning a tactical ride for third place as lively reserve Jacob Thorssell held Robson at bay for third place – and then Woffinden and Ludvig Lindgren shot clear of Grzegorz Zengota in Heat 9 to suddenly reduce the lead to three points.
A 5-1 in Heat 10 regained control for Bees but Wolves remained in touch as Thorssell defied Nicholls to win Heat 11, whilst the next race threw up an extraordinary refereeing decision.
With Zengota and Lindgren trading elbows on the start-line it was arguable that the race should not have begun, but with Smith ahead and Thorssell second, Zengota lost control at the start of the third lap and crashed into the fence – and a split-second later, before the red lights had come on, Thorssell also came to grief.
Remarkably only Zengota was disqualified, despite Thorssell not being under power at the time of the stoppage – and even more remarkably, Thorssell was then awarded third place despite being second at the time of Zengota’s crash!
Bees were now in severe danger of dropping a point from the meeting and although their nerves were eased by Kasprzak’s Heat 13 win over Woffinden, Wolves immediately responded by cancelling out the 4-2 with another victory from Skornkicki in the penultimate race.
That left the visitors needing an advantage from the finale to restrict Bees to two points – but Kasprzak made full use of the inside gate and withstood Woffinden’s strong challenge to secure the maximum for his team.
Coventry boss Gary Havelock said: “KK (Kasprzak) is a confidence rider, and when everything is right like tonight – he’d just picked another engine up – you could see from Heat 1 he was happy with it. When he’s like that, he’s as good as it gets.
“I’ll take no credit for booking Kozza as guest, I have to give Blayne (Scroggins) the nod for that one because it was him who suggested Kozza, but he was phenomenal and we might have been in trouble without him.
“I’ve got to give Wolves a lot of credit - most people coming here probably expected a Coventry win, but they pushed us very close without Freddie.â€
BUILDBASE BEES 50: Krzysztof Kasprzak 14, Kozza Smith 13+2, Grzegorz Zengota 7, Scott Nicholls 6, Aaron Summers 5+2, Stuart Robson 5+2, Michal Szczepaniak r/r.
WOLVERHAMPTON 43: Adam Skornicki 13+1, Tai Woffinden 12, Jacob Thorssell 10+2, Ludvig Lindgren 6+1, Rohan Tungate 2, Lewis Kerr 0, Ty Proctor r/r.
BUILDBASE BEES 50 Krzysztof Kasprzak 3 2 3 3 3 = 14 Michal Szczepaniak Rider Replacement Grzegorz Zengota 3 3 1 X 0 = 7 Aaron Summers 2* 1 2* 0 0 = 5+2 Scott Nicholls 0 3 2 1 = 6 Stuart Robson R 2* 0 1* 2 = 5+2 Kozza Smith 2 3 1* 2 2* 3 = 13+2
WOLVERHAMPTON 43 Lewis Kerr 0 0 0 = 0 Ty Proctor Rider Replacement Rohan Tungate R 1 1 0 = 2 Adam Skornicki 2 R 6^ 1 3 1* = 13+1 Tai Woffinden 2 3 3 2 2 = 12 Ludvig Lindgren 1 1 0 2* 0 2 = 6+1 Jacob Thorssell 3 1* 1 3 1* 1 = 10+2
