Qualification was based on the combined averages of the top two riders in each team. The top ten teams qaulify for the final. Edinburgh were due to be represented by Peter Carr and Robert Eriksson and qualified on the back of their averages. It is looking as though Peter Carr will postpone his comeback and that Jan Andersen will join Robert at Workington.
The Pairs has never been Peter's favourite event and he missed the 1999 final at Newport but miraculously recovered to race for Edinburgh the following day! James Grieves dominated that event winning every heat bar a diabolical exclusion in his first ride. Peter Carr went to Newport with Monarchs the following week and dropped only one point. If ever Monarchs should have won the Pairs that was the year.
Monarchs finished fourth last year after losing to the Isle of Wight in the semi-final and then to Sheffield in the consolation final. You have to go back to 1986 to find a Monarcs win in the Pairs. Les Collins and Doug Wyer were successful at Hackney then in an event which has run intermittently since it was first staged in 1975.
The format is that the ten teams are split into two groups of five. Each pair rides against every other pair in their group. That amounts to ten heats for each group. The top two from each group contest the semi-finals. The winners of each semi-final go through to the final and the losers contest the consolation final.
Th groups are drawn as follows:
Group A: Sheffield (Sean Wilson and Robbie Kessler), Exeter (Michael Coles and Mark Simmons), Newport (Steve Masters and Glenn Cunningham), Swindon (Paul Fry and Claus Kristensen), and Reading (Charlie Gjedde and Armando Castagna).
Group B: Workington (Carl Stonehewer and Peter Karlsson), Isle of Wight (Ray Morton and Danny Bird), Arena Essex (Colin White and Leigh Lanham), Newcastle (Bjarne Pedersen and Jesper Olsen), and Edinburgh (Robert Eriksson and Jan Andersen).
Many will be surprised to see that Hull, runaway Premier League leaders, absent from the qualifiers. This is the payback for Hull's blatent early season average manipulation that enabled them to bring in Paul Bentley and Ross Brady to an already strong team. Paul Thorp and Garry Stead currently averaging around ten points in the Premier League after dropping well below seven points in the Premier Trophy. Less surprising absentees are Berwick, Trelawny, and Glasgow. Stoke may have expected to qualify with theit strong top pairing of Jan Stæchmann and Paul Pickering but injuries and the timings of the qulifying averages worked against them. Stoke hinted that the Pairs should include some sort of regional qualifiers arguing that it was unfair to select teams based on eaarly season averages.
Home advantage should see Workington emerge as favourites. Many including Robert Eriksson have argued that such events should be staged on neutral (Elite League) tracks. Monarchs took a similar line on the Fours and the Premier League Riders' Championships and have succeded in both cases.
Carl Stonehewer has been in the winning pairing three times in four years. He joined Martin Dixon to win for Long Eaton in 1997. He won with Workington in 1999 (with Brent Werner) and in 2000 (with Mick Powell). If Stonehewer is in the top pairing on Saturday then maybe be will win the trophy outright!