Reading close out PL with season best.

Reading completed their 2004 Premier League fixtures with a comfortable 61-33 win over Stoke Potters on Monday night at Smallmead Stadium.

It was a great all-round team effort in what was their biggest win of the season, and cements their final finishing position of third place, which is Reading's best since they were runners-up in 1998. It was a convincing
display by the home side, providing fourteen of the fifteen heats winners with only Paul Pickering taking the chequered flag for the visitors in heat 15.

Danny Bird and Andrew Appleton got the Euphony Racers off to a good start in heat 1 with a 4-2 over Pickering and Trent leverington, and then Chris Mills and Jamie Westacott extended that lead with a maximum 5-1 in heat 2 ahead of former Racer Paul Clews and Rob Grant.

Reading then rattled off three successive 4-2's to open up a 21-9 advantage after five heats, and Bird and Appleton made it 26-10 with a 5-1 over Jan Staechmann and Grant in heat 7.

The next two races were shared, but then a 5-1 from Chris Schramm and Phil Morris in heat 9 and a 4-2 from Bird and Appleton in heat 10 helped them open up a big 41-19 advantage for the Euphony Racers.

Pickering went out as a tactical ride in heat 11, but after leading Matej Zagar for a lap had to settle for a four-point second place when the Slovenian moved up the inside to take the lead at the start of the second lap. With Leverington taking third ahead of Westacott the Potters 5-3 did pull the lead back to 44-24. However the Racers once again upped the tempo with a 5-1 from Schramm and Mills in heat 12.

The dynamic duo of Zagar and Bird raced to another 5-1 in heat 13, this time over Staechmann and Pickering to leave them 54-26 up with two heats to go. Morris then won heat 14 ahead of Alan Mogridge (tactical ride) and Westacott
beat Grant for third place for a drawn 4-4 race.

In the final heat Pickering became the only Stoke heat winner all night at the same time ending the maximum hopes of Morris and Bird. Although Bird made him work hard for the win pushing the former Racer all the way to the
chequered flag, which helped earn him the rider of the night award from meeting sponsors Tektronix.

With the Premier League now complete, the play-offs (Jack Young Shield) will take place for the top eight clubs. Reading are expected to select Sheffield as their play-off quarter-final opponents, with the first leg most probably
next Monday subject to confirmation.