IF Matej Zagar makes it through the World Championship qualifying semi-finals, get some money on him reaching the 2010 Grand Prix series.
Brandon must be the perfect venue for the Slovenian to race in the Grand Prix Challenge, and this meeting showed exactly why he rates the track as one of his favourites.
Bees fans will already have had memories of Zagar's brilliant Heat 15 when racing for Reading in 2007, when he overtook Rory Schlein and Scott Nicholls to snatch a draw for the Bulldogs.
This time around, he went unbeaten from five rides in a textbook display, and his new team Swindon had two No.1s on the night because captain Leigh Adams was also at his characteristic best.
And with two of their riders scoring 28 points between them, that gave the Robins enough to compensate for the fact that they were using rider-replacement for Jurica Pavlic, and that their regular doubling-up riders were unavailable.
For Coventry, therefore, this was an indication of the ground that they need to make up in the second half of the season, as the Robins came away from Brandon with an away win for the second time.
Five Bees riders won at least one race, but the team only won six in total, and Swindon always appeared to be just ahead of the game - even though the Robins were given a late scare in a sensational Heat 14.
But it was a far from sensational start for the Bees, with fuel issues delaying Scott Nicholls' acceleration to full speed in Heat 1, by which time Adams and Paul Hurry had disappeared into the sunset to bank maximum points over Filip Sitera.
The reserves' race also looked like causing problems in the early stages, but Josh Auty rode a fine race to move inside Richard Sweetman on the first lap and then chase Hurry hard, finally moving through into the third bend for the final time and just holding the lead to the finish line.
And the Bees were back on terms one race later thanks to good second-bend moves from both Rory Schlein and Edward Kennett after Travis McGowan had appeared to get the drop initially. The pairing were chased initially by Simon Stead but the last two laps were plain sailing as the scores were tied at 9-9.
But Zagar served notice of his intentions in Heat 4, despite being left well adrift of Chris Harris on turn two after a good start from the Bees skipper. Indeed, attention was first on the battle for third place with Hurry firmly putting the block on the faster Auty's outside effort - a move which appeared to be forgotten by the Swindon rider later on - but suddenly Zagar began to reel in Harris, and after an aborted effort into turn three on lap three, he generated the speed going into turn one to blow by his former Trelawny team-mate.
Adams took his second win ahead of a chasing Kennett in a shared Heat 5, the first of three races to end 3-3, with Zagar flying clear of Sitera and Nicholls in Heat 6, and Harris taking a comfortable win in the next but Ricky Wells' challenge being thwarted by McGowan.
Swindon, however, doubled their lead from two to four points as Stead unsurprisingly took charge of Heat 8 and Hurry again held Auty at bay - and the succession of shared heats which followed were all good news for the Robins with their big guns available to close out the meeting.
Zagar trapped superbly to get the better of Schlein and Kennett in Heat 9, and although Nicholls rode a good first lap to make it around McGowan in the next, the Robins would still have been satisfied with keeping Sitera out for a 3-3.
The lead could have been extended further in Heat 11 with Adams holding the advantage over Harris, and McGowan in third place, but Wells picked up his first point of the night with a smart inside move at the end of lap three when McGowan swung wide, and that kept Bees just in contention.
Kennett had to work hard in the early stages of Heat 12 with Stead and Hurry both making better starts, but the Coventry man was ahead by the end of the first lap, whilst Wells couldn't quite score in his extra ride despite doing all he could against Hurry.
So the Robins went into the last three heats four points up, and Bees desperately needed to find a way past either Zagar or Adams - or preferably both. But Heat 13 went according to the formbook of the meeting, with Nicholls initially contesting turn one with Zagar before the Slovenian pulled clear, and Adams quickly joined him as they went into the second lap - and at 43-35 to Swindon, it was almost game over.
Not quite, though, as Bees pulled out an amazing result in Heat 14 - particularly when you consider that McGowan and Hurry held a 5-1 from the gate. Schlein, though, worked his way past both of the visiting riders, and Wells again used the inside to good effect to make his way past Hurry off the second bend on lap three.
But a 4-2 wasn't going to be enough, Schlein knew it and then displayed terrific awareness to slow the race down on the last lap and bring Wells fully into play - it was almost reminiscent of Nicholls and Joonas Kylmakorpi against Antonio Lindback at Poole in 2005 as McGowan got out of shape on the last bend, Wells shot through into second place, and suddenly Bees had set up a last-heat decider.
Some rather unnecessary 'afters' followed, and the most surprising thing was that if anyone had a right to be upset with what had been the kind of genuine 'old school' team-riding that is rarely seen nowadays, it should have been McGowan - yet it was Hurry, who had finished last, who took the aggressive approach.
So it came to Heat 15 with the Bees needing a 5-1 to snatch a draw, and the Robins needing a 5-1 to secure all four points from the meeting.
The Coventry side of that equation was never on as Kennett was unable to make it from the outside, but Schlein did make just the best start from gate 2 - only to be literally swamped by the Zagar/Adams express, who showed true mastery of the circuit to secure their team's fully deserved victory.
The result puts the Robins five points clear at the top of the table and very much in pole position for a handicap advantage in the play-off semi-finals.
For those who thought Coventry's attempts to get back to strength by replacing in-form broken leg victims amounted to a big-spending move to buy the Elite League title, recent results do tend to show that point of view to be about as nonsensical as it was when it was first stated.
