Workington Comets got back on track after their previous home setback when they beat the champions Leicester Lion Cubs 50-39 at Northside.
It was credit to the visitors, though, that they weren’t beaten until the penultimate heat after battling from heat three with just five riders.
Ashton Boughen had arrived at the track but apparently left soon afterwards while Tom Spencer was taken to hospital with a suspected broken arm after a crash in just the third race.
It meant that in three races they could only track one rider, yet battled on to share the heat points nine times during the meeting. Workington managed only two 5-1’s and it was the second of those in the penultimate race which made sure of the victory.
Team manager James Denham said: “It’s great to have responded after last week and beaten the champions but credit to Leicester for staying in the contest for so long.”
The Comets themselves only tracked six, operating rider replacement for Elliot Kelly as he recovers from concussion. Denham, however, did give a ride to number eight Callum Foy but unfortunately he crashed-out in heat seven which was awarded as a 3-3.
Workington had got off to the best possible start with a 5-1 in the first when Adam Roynon, the Lion Cubs’ only representative, was beaten by Ave Pijper and Connor Bailey.
That was the only time that Australian Bailey didn’t take the chequered flag as he completed another masterful performance with 14 points and that opening race bonus point.
Fifteen-year-old Luke Harrison – who has his next birthday on Thursday – turned in another hugely impressive performance.
It might be exam time at school, but Harrison is focusing more on his racing in the hope of one day earning full-time employment from the sport – and whose to say he won’t go on to do that.
He won three of his five starts and for the second meeting in a row was into double figures with 11 points.
It is the National Development League, with the emphasis on the middle word in the title, and the fact that 15-year-old Max Perry was Leicester’s top scorer with 11 suggests it is doing the right job for the sport.
He might look more like Harry Potter than a speedway ace, but clearly young Perry has a bit of magic about him and it will be interesting watching how both he and Harrison progress over the coming years.
Harrison won the reserve race while Perry, already a heat leader for Leicester, beat Sam McGurk and Luke Crang in the re-run of heat three following a 40 minute delay while the injured Spencer was eventually ferried to hospital.
Leicester had only one heat advantage in the whole meeting when Pijper split skipper Joe Thompson and Max James in heat four but after 10 races there were only four points in it.
Only three rider contested heat eleven and just two finished after Pijper suffered engine problems. Harrison went on to beat former Comet Roynon.
Crucially Sam McGurk scored his one heat win in the 12th race as brother Harry again missed out and from a great start he went on to beat Perry and Max James.
Heat thirteen is always an important confrontation and Leicester were looking for maximum points when Roynon and Thompson gated well as a 5-1 would have put them right back in the mix.
But Bailey, lying third at the end of the first lap produced a superb inside pass to get through to the lead and with Thompson eventually dropping away Pijper took third for a 42-35 Comets lead.
It was left to the combination of young Harrison and skipper Crang to race away from Kai Ward and seal the Comets victory with a 5-1.
Bailey beat Perry and Thompson in the last for the ninth shared heat of the meeting and the Comets have 11 points to take to Leicester at the end of the season in their quest for the aggregate point.
Workington Comets: Connor Bailey 14 + 1; rider replacement for Elliot Kelly; Sam McGurk 9; Luke Crang 5 + 4; Ace Pijper 9; Luke Harrison 11 + 1; Harry McGurk 2; Number eight Callum Foy 0.
Leicester Lion Cubs: Adam Roynon 8; Ashton Boughen did not ride; Max Perry 11; Tom Spencer 0; Joe Thompson 9 + 1; Kai Ward 2 + 1; Max James 9 + 3.
