Don Valley have made a fantastic start in their bid to make it three league titles in a row, after just four meetings they now four points clear of the pack with a point difference 59 better than their closest rivals. West Norwood finished runners-up to the Vipers last season and it was expected that they would be one of their main challengers again in this campaign, but they were second best when the two sides met in the capital, the Kestrels having been seven points up after the first two heats losing out 44-45. And don’t let the closeness of the final scores fool you, the Vipers had this one wrapped up by the end of heat 14, a 5-1 in the finale for the Kestrels glossing over a mid-meeting collapse from them. West Norwood conceded a run of five heat advantages in six races to the visitors, beginning with a Martin Bank (11) winning 4-2 in heat seven and ending with another from the same rider in heat 12. The run brought about a 12 point turnaround in the scores in favour of Don Valley, and took them to the verge of a victory which would extend their unbeaten run on the road in all fixtures to ten meetings! It was surprisingly though that the pick of the riders on show was home number one Dzoni Morec, he the first to consistently get the better of both Leon Creer (9+1) and Matthew Madigan (10) this season and deservedly ended the night with a 15 point maximum to his name. The disappointing thing for the hosts and their promoter Neil Boniface was that his fellow heat leaders Mikhail Miloserdov (6) and lonaee Liam Marlow (9+1)—who is an asset of the Vipers— managed just one race win between them.

TODAY: Shorts

California boss David Grainger will be dreamin’ of promotion after his side became the first—and still only—to record an away win in division two this season. The victory was returned at Langley (42-48), where successive 5-1’s from heat 12 onwards turned a tight meeting the way of the visitors. The first was won by recent addition Andrej Stromajer (9), who put in his best performance for the club since his switch from Framlingham, while it was the Poppies only other ‘non-Brit’ in the line up, Jozsef Kardos (13+1), who picked up the three points in the next. With the visitors now eight up a second place from second string Christos Myatt (7+1) in the penultimate race was good enough to confirm both league points would be going their way.