Arena Essex beat Isle of Wight 47-45 on Friday night at the Purfleet Raceway in this Premier League encounter but the closeness of the final score line belied the authority of the home side.
Three race wins apiece from Leigh Lanham and Colin White plus a couple of successes for Kelvin Tatum provided the main thrust of the Hammers scoring although the most successful rider was the Islanders Ray Morton who proved a constant threat with 4 race wins in his six outings.
Arena took the lead in heat 2 with a maximum from Andy Galvin and Mark Thompson, who was replacing the injured Carl Baldwin, and from that point the home side steadily increased their lead to a margin of 12 points by the completion of heat 13 to guarantee the 2 match points .
Amongst a trio of race wins for White was a heat 5 win with a time of 60 seconds, just outside the track record.
When White teamed up with Lee Herne for a well-merited 4-2 over the visitors Adam Shields and Danny Bird Arena were enjoying a 31-23 lead and Tatum and Shaun Tacey added another 4 points to that margin with a maximum in heat 10.
Then Lanham and Galvin collected a 4-2 to open up a lead of 40-26 after Morton had been excluded and a shared heat 13 ensured Arena of victory with the score at that stage 45-33.
Published Monday August 26, 2002
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