Scorpions win Conference Shield

The 'Lincs FM' Scorpions face the Rye House Raiders in the second leg of the Playoff Semi-final this afternoon at the Scunthorpe Raceway.

The racing starts at 3pm with the Scorpions holding a 14-point lead from Saturday's first leg in Hertfordshire.

The Scorpions won 52-38 in the first leg last night after defeating the Sittingbourne Crusaders 63-27 earlier in the day. The win at Sittingbourne secured the team their second major piece of silverware of the season, the Conference Shield after Benji Compton and Paul Cooper won the Conference League Pairs title in August.

Having won all eight group matches in the Shield competition a draw at Sittingbourne would have been enough to win the title but Paul Cooper, Richie Dennis and Tai Woffinden were all unbeaten by an opponent as the Scorpions racked up the points in the afternoon meeting.

Once that meeting was over the team drove the 70 miles around London to Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire to take on the team that finished third in the regular season. The stakes couldn't be higher, with the winners set to face Plymouth in the two-legged final to decide who are the 2006 Conference League Champions, and the Scorpions started superbly to be leading 31-17 after just eight of the fifteen races.

However, the Raiders came back strong and it was all in the balance with two heats to go. The Scorpions led 42-36 at that time and could easily have lost the first leg but two maximum heat wins give them a nice start for this afternoon's second leg meeting. Leading the Scorpions were Tai Woffinden and Josh Auty who were unbeaten by an opponent.

Benji Compton and Andrew Tully suffered knocks when falling during the day but both are expected to be fir to race this afternoon.