Wednesfield Aces held the second annual Midland Fiesta Fours Finals and the Junior Olympic Individual sponsored by The Fox At Shipley.
The Midland Fiesta Fours was reinstated last year after several years lying dormant. Last year, Wednesfield Aces, after some tough competition got their names on the refurbished original trophy and this year intended to retain it.
The tapes went up at 1pm prompt under glorious blue skies with Wednesfield, Sheffield Stars and Birmingham Monarch showing there’s very little between the clubs.
Heats seven and nine saw the turning point when Lee Aris and Marcus Wadhams jumped the tapes leaving the share of the points to Sheffield.
Heat 12 saw another exclusion for Birmingham Monarchs, this time it was Chris Timms for leaving no room for challenging Lee Aris. The three clubs went into the interval with Wednesfield on 39, Sheffield on 44 and Birmingham on 34.
During the interval, the Junior Olympic Individual got under way with eight guest riders battling over eight heats for a place in the final.
Just as the action started, the blue skies disappeared and the heavens opened making the track a real challenge for the competitors, some of whom were as young as 12.
The Grand Final was between Charlie Ellitts, Troy Allen, Harrie Everiss and Haydn Rowley. All four flew out of the tapes.
Allen, with a maximum 16 points, and Everiss, on 15, fought it out tyre to tyre. Ellitts and Rowley battled for the third place trophy. Allen finished just ahead of Everiss, with Rowley passing Ellitts on the last lap for third place.
The second half of the Fiesta Fours then got underway and the blue sky returned. Wednesfield and Birmingham rearranged the running order of the five riders in an attempt to close the gap on Sheffield.
But the plan didn’t work and in heats four and five, Wednesfield and Birmingham threw it away with Ricki Johnson being caught out by a tape infringement and Chris Timms finding himself on the grass and failing to finish.
Thank you to all the riders officials and spectators for making this event happen with a special thank you to Neil and Pete Taylor from The Fox for sponsoring the event.
Results:
Sheffield 92. Matt Smith 26, Pawel Izdoric 25, Andy Angell 22, Jamie Ball 19
Wednesfield 75. Chris Jewkes 22, Lee Aris 20, Matt Haddock 12, Mark Griffiths 11, Ricki Johnson 10
Birmingham 68. Pail Heard 24, Chris Timms 18, Nathan Groves 11, Marcus Wadhams 11, Paul Timms 4
Please credit www.britishcycling.org.uk and link back if you use any of our race results.
British Cycling would like to thank the organising team, officials and everyone else who helped promote this event. Our sport could not exist without the hundreds of people, many of them unpaid volunteers, who put in many hours of hard work running events, activities and clubs.
