DAN Greenwood again proved to be the fastest man at Central Park in Monday’s KO Cup as Coventry Storm exited the competition at the hands of Kent.
Storm were already 22 points down from the first leg against a Kings team who are unbeaten so far this season, and that 56-34 scoreline was repeated in the return fixture.
But Monday’s improvement was an improvement on the 66-24 outcome when the sides met in the National League last month.
Greenwood had broken the Kent track record on his last visit, leading to home sponsors offering cash incentives to any of their own riders who could take it back.
But Greenwood defeated Kings skipper Luke Bowen in Heat 1 and scored round in 57.3 seconds to knock 0.1s off his own mark.
With Liam Carr, who missed the May fixture between the clubs, offering solid support the Storm kept in contention for far longer than they had done last month.
They won three of the first five races but suffered another blow in Heat 8 with a crash for Conor Dwyer.
Dwyer tangled with Kent’s Luke Clifton and was brought down heavily, leading to a trip to hospital for x-rays on his leg.
Ironically it comes just at a time when the Storm are hoping to return to a seven-man unit, with a new signing set to be in place for Sunday’s home fixture against Birmingham.
Greenwood reeled off his third win of the night in Heat 11, adding Danny Ayres and James Shanes to his list of scalps, before Bowen finally got the better of him in Heat 13 with Bowen and Ayres then notching a Heat 15 5-1 over Greenwood and Carr to leave the Kings clear winners at the end.
“I did ask if Dan could have half of the prize money! He’s just so good around here, he loves it,” said Storm boss Laurence Rogers.
“We were only eight points down at halfway before they banged in a couple of 5-1s and 4-2s, but it was a much better performance than last time
“I feel if we didn’t have bad luck we wouldn’t have any luck, and now we left waiting on Conor who has gone for x-rays. He’d had a good win in Heat 8 and I don’t really know what Luke Clifton did.
“Obviously we have to hope Conor will be fit for Sunday, but he may not be, in which case it would be rider replacement again.”
