Bian Turner was taken to hospital after a horror pile up in heat 2 at Armadale last night. Chritisn Henry went rather too fast into the third bend and fell collecting Scott Courtney and Brian Turner. Courtney has an injury to the radius bone in his wrist. Brian Turner appears to have injured the same wrist that sidelined him for five months recently.
Edinburgh promoter John Campbell said that it would be unfair to put too much blame on debutante Christian Henry for the accident:
"It was a rather foolish incident which caused a great deal of upset. Christian went into the bend about ten miles an hour too fast and he ploughed into the others. It comes down to experience, and Christian knows he made a mistake. He feels terrible over what happened. The next time he'll be a bit more mature. However you cannot fault him. The hardest thing to impress on young speedway riders is that races do last for more than one lap."
Christian Henry is likely to ride at Ashfield on Sunday but Turner is the concern for Campbell:
"Brian is the real worry. If he has broken his scaphoid, and it's taken him five months to get back on track after his Newcastle fall, there's no way we can wait another five months. But I don't have a clue about possible replacements. Good three-point reserves are not exactly thick on the ground."
The obvious replacement for Turner would be David McAllan. However he is still recovering from his knee operation. He is waiting for the go ahead to commence jogging. It will be a week or two before he could consider making a return. If David were to be drafted into the team, Monarchs would have to use Conference League riders such as Jon Swales to cover in the meantime.
Obviously everyone will be hoping that Brian has not broken his scaphoid and will soon be back. The jinx on the number six position in the Edinburgh side appears to be have carried over from last year.
Captain Peter Carr commented:
"The injuries to our reserves took some shine off the match. But overall I was pleased how well the team rode."
Carr with Robert Eriksson secured the unlikely win over Glasgow with a last heat 5-1 against James Grieves and Les Collins:
"It was a very hard race. James knows his way round Armadale like the back of his hand and he sneaked past me. I simply had to nick past him again!"