LEICESTER suffered a frustrating semi-final exit from the Championship League Pairs at Oxford on Friday.
The Watling JCB Lions were the highest scoring team in the qualifying stages of the meeting, and they looked every inch potential winners of the silverware.
But they found themselves in a semi-final with Poole – when many had tipped that to be the Final race – and it was the Pirates who went through.
Lions duo Nick Morris and Richie Worrall took maximum points in three of their four qualifying races, securing 7-2s over Edinburgh, Scunthorpe and Birmingham.
Their only dropped points came at the hands of Glasgow when an outstanding Benjamin Basso stormed from the outside gate, with Worrall and Morris closing off Danyon Hume to ensure they still took the race 5-4.
With Basso reeling off four wins, Glasgow finished second in the group, five points behind Leicester, but a 7-2 from Redcar over Poole in the final race of Group B not only confirmed Bears’ place in the semi-finals, it also took them above the Pirates and meant it would be a Leicester v Poole semi.
And in that race, Steve Worrall made a flying start from gate two for the Pirates and was joined from the outside by team-mate Danny King. Morris managed to move inside King on the second lap but despite efforts to create a gap for Steve Worrall, King held third place and the Lions exited the meeting.
Redcar then defeated Glasgow in the second semi, although Basso completed an individual maximum – and it was the Bears who celebrated victory in the Final after Steve Worrall suffered engine failure on the start-line.
CHAMPIONSHIP LEAGUE PAIRS, Oxford
QUALIFYING SCORES:
GROUP 1
LEICESTER 26: Richie Worrall 15, Nick Morris 11.
GLASGOW 21: Benjamin Basso 16, Danyon Hume 5.
SCUNTHORPE 16: James Wright 8, Simon Lambert 8.
EDINBURGH 15: Paco Castagna 8, Kye Thomson 7.
BIRMINGHAM 12: Justin Sedgmen 12, James Pearson 0.
GROUP 2
REDCAR 25: Charles Wright 14, Lewis Kerr 11.
POOLE 22: Danny King 12, Steve Worrall 10.
BERWICK 22: Chris Harris 11, Jye Etheridge 11.
OXFORD 13: Scott Nicholls 8, Aaron Summers 5.
PLYMOUTH 8: Adam Roynon 6, Ben Morley 2.
SEMI-FINAL 1: S.Worrall, Morris, King, R.Worrall – [Poole beat Leicester 6-3]
SEMI-FINAL 2: Basso, Wright, Kerr, Hume – [Redcar beat Glasgow 5-4]
GRAND FINAL: Wright, Kerr, King, S.Worrall (ret) – [Redcar beat Poole 7-2]
