Bees throw it away

After a disasterous week which began with a televised heavy defeat away at Lakeside Hammers, the Bees without Chris Harris following his injury sustained in the Cardiff grand prix, suffered further defeats away at Poole, home to Poole and away at Eastbourne. The latter 2 matches saw the Bees line-up comprise few of the current team what with injuries and international duties.

Tonight in front of the Sky cameras once again the Bees were back to almost full strength only missing the injured Billy Janniro, as they took to the track in Manchester against the Belle Vue Aces.

The early heats were shared with any heat advantage gained soon cancelled out, so after heat 5 the score was 15 each.
At that point though the meeting seemed to turn in the Bees favour with 5-1 heat advantages in heats 7 and 8 giving a 6 point margin to the Bees.
2 more dran heats were followed by an exchange of 4-2's thus ensuring that the Bees went into heat 13 ahead by 6 points but up against the Aces captain Jason Crump who eventually scored a full maximum on the night.

Heat 13 was where the match left the Bees for at the first time of asking Rory Schlein hit the shale forcing the race to be stopped with the Aces on a 5-1.
However with Chris Harris in the heat Bees hopes were high for a 4-2 deficit which would have left the Bees still in control.

These hopes were dashed on turns 3 & 4 of lap 1 of the re-run where Chris was on the inside of the Aces rider Forsberg in 2nd place, but he picked up too much drive and couldn't stop forcing Forsberg to crash. Harris excluded and an easy 5-0 to the Aces left the Bees with a 1 point advantage going into heat 14.

This was shared 3-3 so it was down to the wire for the last race. With Chris and Rory lining up against Crump and Gjedde hopes were still there for a 3-3 result, but alas the Aces scored a 5-1 to win overall 46 point to 43.

The defeat leaves the Bees at the foot of the Elite League table albeit with matches still in-hand but they need to start winning soon else the current champions could be facing a play-off to retain their Elite league status!

Next up for the Bees is an away fixture at 5th placed Ipswich on thursday evening with 2nd placed Swindon the visitors to Brandon on friday night.

Scorers on the night were:

1. Chris Harris............... 2,2,3,EX,0 = 7
2. Ben Barker ................1,1,1,2,1 = 6
3. Simon Stead...............3,2,2,2 = 9
4. R/R for Billy Janniro
5. Rory Schlein 3,2,3,2,EX,1 = 11
6. Stan Burza 0,1,0 = 1
7. Andreas Messing 2,3,1,0 = 6