Atkin blow for unlucky Wasps

He fell in heat five of the opening home Premier League meeting against Rye House, at the Hayley Stadium yesterday afternoon, one of three riders involved in the pile-up.

Steve Masters, a former Newport rider fell, bringing down Atkin, and Carl Wilkinson was the last rider to be caught up in the spill.

But it looked the type of everyday tumble where all riders would get up, dust themselves down and carry on - but it quickly became obvious that Atkin was in trouble.

He was treated on the track before being taken to the Royal Gwent Hospital with a suspected broken arm, and the meeting was delayed for 45 minutes while the former Stoke rider, in his second season with the Wasps, was treated.

Tim Stone, Newport promoter, said: "The fall was not even at high speed."

Masters was excluded from the re-run and reserve Luke Priest took Atkin's ride, but it made life even tougher for the Wasps, who were using a rider replacement for Pavel Ondrasik, who was hurt in Somerset on Friday evening, suffering shoulder and hand injuries.

Stone added: "We have lost two riders from the engine-room of our team in the space of three matches, and they were not to blame for either incident.

"Tony has suffered a serious arm injury and he was in a considerable amount of pain."

Reserve Karl Mason took Atkin's remaining rides - after the re-run - and Stone added: "He rode very well but was then let down by mechanical problems in his last two races.

"Even their team manager (John Sampford) came across at the end of the meeting and offered his commiserations, and said that we had suffered a terrible amount of hard luck. "It is very unfortunate because we would have won our first home league meeting.

"We were already hampered by having to use rider replacement, but to lose Tony was a double whammy for us."

And if that was bad enough for the Wasps, John Weston, the former Mavericks manager, was shaken up in a pits collision with Wilkinson when he came off the track at