Track condition - excellent. Crowd - poor (roughly 500). Weather - cool, occasional drizzle. After the dreadful display by the Tigers on Thursday night against the Brummies, it was very difficult to know what to expect from them at the Oak Tree Arena, a track which in the past we have been excellent at. Shane Parker won the coin toss for the Rebels and took gate position 1 & 3.

Even break from the start in heat 1, unfortunately Skiddy falls and is discluded. In the rerun Ricky gates and takes a comfortable victory. Heat 2 saw James Holder make the start but he was soon passed by Coops on bend 4 of the first lap, sadly Coops has an EF on lap 3 when a mile clear. Josh Auty made his usual bad start in heat 3, a great first lap sees him go from 4th to 2nd but he cannot catch the flying Parker. Tremendous race in heat 4 saw Arlo make the gate and rode a good race to hold the Rebels off for 2 laps. Cory Gathercole had enough on the 3rd lap and stuffed Arlo giving him nowhere to go and the Rebels take a 5-1, Hally never far behind. Heat 5 saw a great gate from Ash but he's picked off by the much faster Parker on lap 3.

Lubos Tomicek made the gate in heat 6 but Hally passes him with an outside swoop on bend 4 of lap 1, shame for the Tigers that Coops had another EF. Pepe make the gate in heat 7 and is chased by Gathercole, who almost predictably spears Pepe into the fence on bend 4. Cory really needs to learn not to turn right on a speedway track. Sadly Pepe suffers rib injuries and is ruled out from the rest of the meeting. James Holder gates and wins the rerun. Gathercole gates and wins heat 8 and decides to give the rods to the Tigers fans on his victory lap. He really should learn it isn't clever to injure someone and be glad about it! The Rebels took a 5-1 from the gate in heat 9 to put them 12 points up. Heat 10 saw Josh Auty take a tactical ride for Sheffield and he and Coops made terrific gates to take an easy 8-1 to bring the Tigers within touch.

The first running of heat 11 saw Skiddy take a spill after a hard first bend from Gathercole. In the rerun Gathercole make the gate but was brilliantly passed by Ashworth on turn 4 of the first lap. Skidmore chased down Holder for the whole race and passed him on the last lap. Heat 12 saw a tremendous battle with Ritchie and Coops, which ended when Ritchie took an horrendous looking crash on the back straight of lap 3. With Arlo in second the race was awarded and the Tigers took the lead by a point. A drawn heat 13 followed with Ash and Hally following home the fast starting Gathercole. Heat 14 saw the Tigers miss the gate, but great ride by Josh to pass Holder, great effort by Coops to get by Holder but just misses out, so the Rebels took a 1 point lead going into the last race. The unbeaten Parker made the gate hotly pursued by Auty for the whole race, but cannot find a way through. Ash passes Gathercole on the first lap but slides off on the last corner. So the Rebel take a 3 point victory, but a much, much better performance from the Tigers. Finally a hats off message to the 30 or so Tigers fans who made the trip to the OTA who saw one of the best meetings of the season so far, on the best track in British Speedway.

My thanks to Chris for this report.

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