READING Racers carved out a 19-17 win against the new Southern Development League champions Kent Kestrels at Eastbourne on Saturday night.

The Racers tracked a strong team as they attempted to become the first side to defeat the Kestrels.

However, they made hard work of it despite the new champions being weakened by the loss of two of their regular top scorers.

Alex Spooner, in particular, was a big miss, being unbeaten in 21 races in the league this year.

Pulling in Max Pankhurst and Chris Watts to plug the gaps, the Kestrels knew this would be a tough match, but stuck to their task and took the Racers to a last heat decider.

Heat one started exactly as Reading were hoping, as Dan Gilkes led from the start with teammate Stephen Whitehouse behind him looking for a maximum heat win.

Whitehouse, though, got into trouble on the fourth bend, hitting some grip and launching himself into the air fence. The re-run was a tapes-to-flag win for Gilkes ahead of Pankhurst and Andrew Palmer.

The second race also looked like being a 5-1 to Reading, with Nick Laurence and William O’keefe leading the way until the latter was passed by Jamie Couzins on the second lap. It did, however, give Reading a two-point lead.

Heat three saw a ragged first two bends, resulting in Gilkes having little room and colliding with the fence and coming down.

He remounted to give chase, but his bike was damaged and he failed to finish. Couzins took the win ahead of Whitehouse and Watts to level the scores at 9-9.

Another possible 5-1 was lost in the fourth when Laurence and O’keefe led after Pankhurst had started from a 15m handicap for breaking the tapes.

O’keefe slid off on the second bend of the second lap, and although Palmer laid his bike down to avoid him, he did manage to remount and follow his team mate home to share the points.

Laurence again led all the way in heat five, but the race of the night was going on behind him.

Whitehouse and Watts swapped places several times as the home man stuck to the outside line, and looked to have sealed it going into the third bend of the last lap, only to drift out and again crash into the fourth bend fence.

With the scores level at 15-15 and one race left, O’keefe withdrew complaining of pain in his knee from his earlier crash.

Laurence replaced him and led the race from Gilkes as the Racers looked to wrap up the win. Gilkes moved ahead of his team mate and Couzins eventually relieved a tiring Laurence of second, but the 4-2 was enough to seal the win.