GRESHAM Oxford Cheetahs No 1 Todd Wiltshire defied atrocious conditions to pick up the silver medal in the Elite League Speedway Riders Championship at Coventry Stadium on Saturday night.

mConditions at Brandon had been perfect, but a downpour at 5.30 put the meeting in doubt. After due deliberation, the gates were eventually opened a little after 6.30 and huge amounts of sawdust were laid to get the track in a rideable condition.

Wiltshire made a superb gate from grid four to take the opening race in the fastest time of the night.

Craig Boyce was unable to hold off Mark Loram in heat two and in his next outing, he missed the gate totally and trailed in a poor last.

Wiltshire was third in his second ride as he struggled to pass Brian Andersen, while heat 12 saw Boyce and Wiltshire out together, and you could have been forgiven for thinking that they were team riding.

The Oxford pair rode a superb three laps to hold off Jason Crump, with Wiltshire getting past Boyce in the latter stages and Boyce holding on to second in the race of the night. A last place for Boyce in heat 13 effectively ended his evening, while another third place for Wiltshire in heat 16 put him on eight points, only one adrift of leaders Loram, Jason Lyons and Jason Crump.

Loram and Crump duly won their fifth rides and booked their place in the final, and Wiltshire joined them when he squeezed past Peter Karlsson to win heat 20.

With first choice of gate in the semi-final, Wiltshire plumped for gate four and won the heat easily.

The final saw lone Englishman Loram against the three Australians of Crump, Wiltshire and Lyons, with Wiltshire coming home behind Crump for a well-deserved second place.

Final placings: 1 J Crump 12 pts; 2 T Wiltshire 11; 3 J Lyons 9; 4 M Loram 12; 5 P Karlsson 9; 6 M Karlsson 9; 7= J Screen, R Sullivan, B Hamill 8; 10= C Louis, L Adams 7; 12 B Andersen 6; 13 R Correy 5; 14 C Boyce 4; 15 G Havelock 3; 16 D Barker 1.

Story date: Monday 25 October

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.