As last years runners-up Wentworth (25) sat out the first round of the SL33 Club Pairs Championship. Their impact as they made their seasonal bow in the competition was immediate, and impressive. The club who landed their first major trophy in the 4TT last season, have made themselves favourites to take their second next week in the Club Pairs, with Fiske Wahlquist (13) and Kyle Ostrow (12) winning their semi-final tie at Beverley from equal record five-times winners Eastbourne (23). Back-to-back 5-1’s over Mid Cams and Small Heath set Brian McKnight’s duo on their way to victory in the meeting, they opened the second half of the tie with another maximum against Leeds (17), the other club to have won the competition on five separate occasions. There’ll be no sixth in SL33 for the Jags, who went on to miss out on what would have been a fourth successive appearance in the decider after failing to recover from that 5-1 reversal, they finishing fifth behind not only Wentworth and Eastbourne, but also both Greenhill (20) and Cradley Heath (18) who qualified through from third and fourth respectively. Home advantage helped Runcorn’s (24) Paul Hope (16) and Frank Klein (8) secure the win in the second of the semi-final ties, it’s only the second time in seven years Adrian Heathcote’s Rockets have made it through to the final. Joining them in the Brickhill decider from the Linnets Park eliminator are holders Stowmarket (22)—into the final for the fifth successive season—and Kelso (19), who will be bidding to become the first side from the third tier to lift the trophy since SL18.

Newly promoted top flight sides Coventry and Dudley are still looking for their first points of SL33 after both lost home and away again. A first ever league visit to the Earlsdon Arena by Brickhill saw Coventry suffer their latest home loss, the Bohemians conceding four 5-1’s in going down 44-46, Jack Bird (7+2) and second string Owen Carter (11+1) combining for two of the first three of those Tigers maximums, Carter won the fourth ahead of top scorer, reserve Raymond Klish (11+2). Two points was also the margin of victory for Wentworth at Dudley, the Trappers celebrating their Pairs semi-final success by picking up their first away points of the campaign, doing so courtesy of a last heat 4-2 from Kyle Ostrow (14) and Martin Huffman. Between them the two riders raced to seven heat wins in the contest, with Huffman finishing with a 12 point total from five rides, a best for the club since he joined them from Stowmarket for £400,000.

Eastbourne became the first side to win away from home in division two this season after coming from behind to beat Calderwood. The Seagulls more than held their own in the meeting, but would trail for the first time in it going into the final two races after conceding a heat 13 4-2, a race their ten point number one Stig Martinson (10) trailed in last. They levelled things back up with a Cerek Ostrowski (11+2) winning 4-2 in the penultimate race, teenage reserve Fortinbras Mjelde (10+1 from seven) taking a point for third in that, Eastbourne went on to secure the 43-47 victory with a Martinson/Ostrowski 5-1 in the last heat decider.

With just a point for a home draw to show for their first three competitive meetings of SL33, it was certainly a slow start to Didsbury Village’s second season in the sport. Much better this week for James Calderbank’s Vikings, with back-to-back wins taking them into the division three promotion places for the first time ever. In fact they hadn’t been higher than sixth prior to this week, but into the un-trodden territory of the top half they went with a 41-49 victory at Bolsover, where Zsigmond Kadar (14+1) starred for the visitors, the 25 year old completing only his second ever career maximum with victory over Garry Bowman (10+1) in the last. Kadar and 18 year old reserve Tomasz Kwiatkowski (8+2) had already secured the points for the visitors with a 4-2 in the previous heat. Elsewhere a last heat 5-1 from Peter Kokko (15 from six) and Vali Jorde (12+1) earned Wolverhampton a draw at Margate in a meeting they had trailed in by ten, the Wolves had also earlier raced to an away draw in the Division Three Cup, this time at Kelso.

SL31 and 32 BU19 Champion Connor Begum (13) raced to his fourth WSO success of his fledgling career in the first of this weeks BU21 semi-finals at Wolverhampton. Begum—who joined Greenhill on loan from Stowmarket in pre-season—topped the standings by a point from another Witches asset and current holder of the title, Hamish MacKay (12). Claygate’s Callum Bell (14)—whose third place finish in this competition last season is now one of six WSO podium finishes by the youngster—beat Joseph Hicks in a race-off to win the second of the semi-finals in Derby, Alex Walton (13) took third.