Edinburgh acheived their best finish in the Premier League Pairs since the event was revived when they took fourth place at Workington. The home team won the one heat final from surprise package the Isle of Wight. Edinburgh missed out on third place after losing the consolation final to Sheffield.
The meeting was affected by bad weather. The meeting was curtailed after each pair had two rides and the top two from each group proceeded to the semi-finals. The crowd were not happy with the decision.
The whole thing was something of a lottery as the semi-finals and finals were decided over a single heat. At Workington, a missed gate by either rider can prove fatal since a last place ensures defeat. The curtailed group stages added to this random effect. The standard seven-team twenty-one heat pairs format that was used last year is liable to give a truer result. It is likely that greed by the promoters were behind .
There were several quicks in the meeting format. The Isle of Wight progressed to the semi-final without taking a single heat advantage, losing to Newport and Newcastle. Then the two semi-finals were won by teams not winning the race. The 4,3,2,0 points format is OK for a standard meeting but doesn't really hold up in a knock-out situation. All in all the meeting was a total shambles.
Monarchs have a pairs victory in the late 1980s courtosy of Les Collins and Doug Wyer but have had a miserable record in recent years. The event was revived in 1997 and while Monarchs have qualified every year but despite having the likes of Kenny McKinna and Peter Carr fared badly in 1997 at Oxford and 1998 at Newport.
Last year, again at Newport, Monarchs could easily have won. Peter Carr pulled out of the event with an injury and Kevin Little joined James Grieves. Apart from a diabolical exclusion in his first ride when he was knocked off by Frank Smart, Grieves went through the card. Kevin Little took a couple of third places before he was injured in his third ride and withdrew from the meeting. Grieves was partnered by local reserves Chris Neath and Bobby Eldridge in his remaining rides but any points scored by a reserve didn't count. With a scoring system that penalizes last place, Monarchs did well to take fifth place ahead of Newcastle and Glasgow. Peter Carr returned to Newport for a Premier League match a week later and scored 14 points from five rides. Had Carr ridden in the pairs the result could have been very different.