The infamous team spirit that took the Coventry Bees to a clean sweep of trophies 2 seasons ago seemed to have taken a dent last season, but tonight at Brandon showed that if ever the spirit was even stronger.
Smarting from a heavy, and the Bees only, Elite League defeat at Swindon early April (56-39) the Bees played host to the A leg return tonight at Brandon.
Tracking Leigh Adams, along with former Bees Ryan Fisher and Simon Stead, the Robins are a force to be reckoned with, and so it proved at the start of the meeting with the Robins opening up an 8 point lead after the first 5 heats.
This was further extended in heat 7 when a 4-2 to the Robins established a 10 point cushion on the night, and try as they might the Bees couldn't make any inroads to this by the end of heat 9.
However a much needed 5-1 for the Bees with Chris Harris and Ben Barker leading the Robins home in heat 10 reduced the gap to 6 points going into the interval.
Heats 11 and 12 were both drawn before the Bees put in a charge, scoring a 4-2 in heat 13 and then a 5-1 in heat 14 to send both teams into the final heat locked together on 42 points each.
Chris Harris and Rory Schein lines up against Leigh Adams and Simon Stead. Whlst Stead led the way Rory gated ahead of Adams and led for the 1st 2 laps before Adams managed to dive underneath Rory to take 2nd place, and try as they might the Bees couldn't do anything to change the order.
The resulting 5-1 to the Robins gave them the match win by 43 points to 47.
The Bees scorers for tonight were:
1. Chris Harris 2, 3, 3, 1, 0
2. Ben Barker F/ex, 0, 3, 2*,
3. Olly Allen 0, 0, 3, 2
4. Ed Kennett 2, 2, 0^, 3
5. Rory Schlein 1*, 2, 3, 3, 1
6. Ricky Wells f, 0, 0,
7. Jordan Frampton 2, 2, 0, 1*, 2*
Saturday sees Chris Harris taking part in the first Speedway Grand Prix of the season in Prague, which can be seen live on Sky Sports at 6pm on Saturday evening.