LAST week proved a bit frustrating all round when we had one of those nights at Scunthorpe on the Friday losing Robin Aspegren in his first race and seeing Doyley laying there under the air fence.

We all thought, ‘oh no’, but he was up and thankfully the shoulder was fine.

But without Robin, who has really been on form of late (must be having me do his bike!) we missed his scoring and went down by a mere two points.

Jonesy battled hard and suffered a strange exclusion in heat ten when coming off gate four and doing a big one, just as he done the race before which he won, he ended up with nowhere to go and on his backside.

This was clearly a case of first bend bunching and although that rule is not officially in the ref’s rulebook common-sense usually prevails and they have all four back – but not this time and in the end this cost us the win really.

I had a night to forget – in fact a day to forget. We got stuck in traffic and it took six hours to get there and it was big rush for us.

I must admit that long period in the van did my back, which I had hurt at Workington the previous week in the cup semi-final, no good at all.

I did try to get in some warm up exercises but perhaps with all the rush to get the bike ready didn’t do enough –certainly not enough after watching Charlie Gjedde doing his in the changing rooms with press ups included! I was disappointed with the night as a whole from a personal point of view and to lose by two didn’t help my viewpoint either.

However we were determined to put that right on the return the next night and did so with a solid team effort without Robin who sat the meeting out after his crash. My evening ended badly with my exclusion in heat 15 when Ben Wilson literally parked his bike in front of me and I had to lay it down to avoid hitting him only for the ref to see it differently and exclude me.

Doyley and Charlie warmed up for the PLRC in the best possible way with paid maximums but things were a lot different at Sheffield on what I hear was a heavy track that did not produce much in the way of real racing.

Charlie had to pull out after two rides but Doyley battled on and reached the semi-final stage.

This weekend is a big one for everyone at Newport Speedway with the KO Cup Final against Glasgow – a tough one for sure against the side who have all but walked away with the league title. The boys are certainly up for it and want to do it for the promotion, fans and ourselves.

We hope that there is a bumper crowd in to support us, so please make lots of noise.

I am sponsoring the big fireworks we are letting off at the end of the meeting, so let’s hope we can do the business and take a good lead and enjoy the action.

Finally a little story about Robin. I pick him up most weeks from Stansted and recently he phoned me to ask if it was alright if he had a friend with him. Well when he got in the van I said, ‘Well, where’s your friend?’ He just smiled that wicked smile, unzipped his bag and got his iPad out saying, ‘Here he is!’ Mad Swede that one!