Key: + denotes 15m handicap for starting offense.

SHEFFIELD SPEEDWAY MATCH REPORTS 2023
SHEFFIELD 'Tigers' v IPSWICH 'Witches'											Premiership 2			10th July '23
Ref: Craig Ackroyd		01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	S/h	Tot+Bp
1. Jack Holder	8.58	3					2				3			1'		2	(3)	11+1
2. Lewis Kerr	5.35	fx					-		-		-							0
3. Adam Ellis	6.09			3		fx				0			3					6
4. Josh Pickering	5.79			1		1				2					3			7
5. Tobiasz Musielak	8.17				3			3				2		2		1'	(2)	11+1
6. Kyle Howarth ©	5.18		3		1			1	2'		1	-	2'		2'			12+3
7. Dan Gilkes	RS		1		-		0		3			0	-					4
Simon Stead		3	4	4	4	1	2	4	5	2	4	2	5	3	5	3	SH 5
SHEFFIELD 'Tigers'		3	7	11	15	16	18	22	27	29	33	35	40	43	48	51
IPSWICH 'Witches'		3	5	7	9	14	18	20	21	25	27	31	32	35	36	39	SH 4
Ritchie Hawkins		3	2	2	2	5	4	2	1	4	2	4	1	3	1	3
1. Emil Sayfutdinov	9.80	1'				3				3		3		3		3	(4)	16+1
2. Keynan Rew	4.00	2				2'			0			1						5+1
3. Danny King ©	6.73			2				2			2		1					7
4. Erik Riss	5.93			0				0			0			1				1
5. Jason Doyle	9.66				2		3			1				0		0	(+0)	6
6. Danyon Hume	3.92		2				1			-			0		0			3
7. Dan Thomson RS	3.31		0		0				1						-			1
		01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	S/h
		60.62	62.44	61.37	61.50	61.12	61.62	62.37	62.88	61.13	63.00	62.00	62.37	61.75	63.31	61.88	62.19

We beat the Witches by 12 in our first home league encounter but they now have Erik Riss back in the side. The Witches claimed seven heat winners to the Tigers nine but the Tigers ran out 12 point winners and won a solid Super Heat!

Emil Sayfutdinov claimed 6 of their race wins and Jason Doyle the other one however the Tigers succeeded as a team. Two race wins each for Jack, Tobiasz and Adam; one win each for Josh, Kyle and Dan and the better team won with the minor placing in the super heat.

Lewis fell on the first lap of heat 1 and had to withdraw from the meeting. Adam rode a good line to hold back Danny King in heat 3. Tobiasz won heat 4 with Jason passing his team mate on the first lap and getting around Kyle on the last lap. Adam was harshly disqualified from heat 5 when Emil dived up inside him and took his hand off the handlebars but Craig Ackroyd's guide dog must have been looking the other way.

Jack struggled from gate 2 and couldn't catch Jason in heat 6. Danyon Hume passed Dan on the last lap for a Witches heat advantage. Kyle was R/R for Lewis in heat 8 and he team rode Dan home for a brilliant reserves 5-1. Ritchie retaliated by substituting Emil into heat 9. Jack won heat 10 and Kyle out paced Erik to rebuild the six point lead.

Emil won heat 11 from Tobiasz and Keynan Rew beat Dan to reduce the deficit to 4. Adam and Kyle trapped in heat 12 and the captain rode well to stay ahead of Danny and the lead went up to 8. In an epic heat 13 Emil won by quite a margin but Tobiasz rounded Jason at the end of the first lap and then Jack dived under him into turn one. Erik Riss briefly led heat 14 but Josh took the lead on the pits turn and then Kyle dived past at the start of the second lap to extend the lead to 12. The team to get an advantage in heat 15 would win the bonus point, but Jason caught the tapes with the peak of his helmet and earned himself a 15m handicap. Emil won the restart but was under fierce pressure from Jack. With the aggregate scores level a Super Heat ensued with virtually the same line up. Emil trapped again but the Tigers let him go knowing that they just had to keep Jason behind to win the bonus point which they accomplished to the delight of the home fans.

Jason was his usual self kicking people on his way into the first bend but totally lost his team all the points by finishing stone dead last in heats 13, 15 and the super heat. The Tigers take all three match points and look to have consolidated their place in the run-offs. Sad postscript is that Lewis' innocuous looking tumble resulted in a broken collar bone.

Analysis of starting gate positions: Gate 1 - 27(+1)pts 6 wins. Gate 2 - 24(+2)pts 2 wins. Gate 3 - 16(+2)pts 1 win. Gate 4 - 23(+2)pts 6 wins.