Islander Tom Brown battles with King’s Lynn’s No. 1 Byron Bekker. Picture by David Valentine.
SPEEDWAYIN THE glorious summer sunshine the Wightlink Islanders produced a scorching performance to totally overwhelm the King’s Lynn Barracudas 59-36.
The Islanders dominated the National League clash from start to finish and their convincing win takes them up to third place in the league.
Now they are just two points behind the current leaders, the Weymouth Wildcats.
Skipper Nick Simmons and his men had promised to avenge the heavy defeat they suffered in the corresponding away match last month and they did it in style.
Simmons led by example, dropping just one point out of a possible 15 in his five rides, and setting a new National League track record of 68.9secs for four laps around the 385-metre Ashey Road circuit.
Both Ben Hopwood (12) and Tom Brown (8+4) also completed their four rides without being headed by a King’s Lynn rider.
There was some superb racing from both sides, the undoubted highlight coming in heat 7 when Simmons squeezed his way through the narrowest gap to clinch a win from the visitors’ top rider Adam Allott.
"Make no mistake we have moulded a very good side together here," said team manager Chris Hunt, after the match.
"And while we aren’t being tipped by most 'experts’ to emerge as league champions this year that suits us fine for we’ll just continue winning matches and picking up the points with no pressure thrust upon us in the process.
"The whole team were simply awesome tonight and never looked in any danger of being beaten from the time Ben (Hopwood) and Tom (Brown) scorched to a maximum 5-1 victory in the very first race of the night.
"We now go to Buxton on Sunday in confident mood after thumping King’s Lynn and while we know beating the Derbyshire side on their home circuit will be a tall order, if we ride as well as we did tonight, there’s no reason why we can’t win there."
On Tuesday, the annual 1000cc sidecar event takes place at the Wave 105FM Stadium, The Solent Sidecar Speedway Championship.
It starts at 7.30pm.