Wales v Scotland Celtic Cup
Event: 3rd April 2010 | Report and Images: Andy Whitehouse
After a cold and wet Wales V England U18 match at East Newport's Larch Grove, a 10 minute drive saw us at the Welsh National Velodrome,home of Newport Cycle Speedway Club and the first of a three match series between Wales and Scotland senior teams, fighting things out for the Celtic Cup. With the track drying nicely from the morning's deluge there promised some close racing from the old adversaries.
Wales won the toss and took grids two and four and the first 7-3 of the day with a win for Matthew Davis and a second for Mark Winwood after Scotland's Pete Young unshipped his chain and team mate Jake Slight crashed out on the last lap after catching Winwood's back wheel, which left the Scotsman motionless on the track for a while. Heat two saw Welsh Captain pick up his first win of the meeting while Scotland's Craig Newsome picked up his first injury of the day after a vicious collision with the perimeter fence which left the rider with some nasty looking facial lacerations. Newsome took his first win in heat four but with more trouble round the corner for the rider it would be his best result from the meeting. Heat seven saw another first and second place for Wales with an on fire Mark Winwood taking the win and Birmingham team mate Ben Mould taking a fine second place after drying out from the U18 contest earlier in the day. Heat eight saw the Scottish one-two pairing of Edinburgh's Jake Slight and Poole's Pete Young take their first 7-3 of the day proving just too strong for the Welsh pair of Dave Murphy and Joe Lewis. The Interval saw the Scots nine points adrift of Wales' forty eight points.
Welsh Champions Ben Mould and Mark Carmichael came out of the interval all guns blazing and taking first and second respectively gave Wales their second 7-3 of the meeting and a healthy thirteen point lead. Heat twelve gave Mark Winwood his third heat win of the day with Scotland's Chris Shylock taking another second spot, Craig Newsome was in the wars again crashing heavily which resulted in the rider been taken to hospital with a suspected broken foot, fortunately x-rays showed heavy bruising.
The remainder of the clash gave the crowd more close and even racing but Wales had really done all the hard work in the first half and with some fine racing from Birmingham team mates Mark Winwood and Ben Mould proved too much for the Scottish team who had only three team members who had previously raced on the velodrome track. The return clash may prove a different story.
Result
WALES 94: Mark Winwood 19, Ben Mould 19, Dave Murphy 12, Mark Carmichael 11, Chris Davis 11, Martin Davis 9, Neil Power 8, Joe Lewis 7
SCOTLAND 83: Jake Slight 16, Nathan Groves 16, Pete Young 13, Chris Shylock 12, Josh Colby 11, Craig Newsome 7, Richard Hunt 4, Sam Dart 4
