On Saturday the Leicester Ladies won the Women's British club championship in fine style.

 

Heat one saw Amy Crouch come up against the on form Lauren Jacobs from the outside grid and came in  second, just as manager Nick Whitehead asked. Heat two, Michelle Whitehead from gate four gated super fast to get over Rosie Woollard and Natalie Timms. Former girls and women's champion and indoor champion, ladies captain Lucy Whitehead made easy work of taking four points in heat three.  In the final grid four, Jenna Whitehead took to the track and was well on form to take the four points.

 

Nick Whitehead told spokesman-online "To only drop one point from four grid fours was excellent.  Our girls never looked back after this.  The only time in the match that we was behind was heat one."
 
Leicester then took grid twos scoring 14 points, Crouch, Michelle and Lucy Whitehead all taking four points each from their rides, backed up with a third place from Jenna Whitehead who dropped points to Lauen Jacobs and Charlie Ellits.
 
Coming off grid ones, Lucy stepped up and again destroyed her opponents with two quick laps, so she could then settle down and save her energy for her next race. Another win from Crouch and two second places from Michelle and Jenna which was 14 points while
their closest opponents, Ipswich, could only score 12 points kept the team on course for the title.
 
The final set of races saw Leicester take to grid threes while Ipswich had grid fours.  Ipswich took 11 points as Leicester notched a three wins.  In heat 15 Jenna Whitehead was replaced with former British champion Dave Hemsley's daughter Rebecca who was unlucky not to make the pass on the Sheffield rider.

 

Heat 16 saw the long awaited clash of the two unbeaten riders, Lauren Jacobs and Lucy Whitehead.  With the match already won, the girls own pride came in to this race with the race getting re-run after Jacobs twitched at the tapes.  The restart saw Lucy fly from grid three with Jacobs chasing for four laps trying everything she had to pass Lucy but Lucy finished the match in style with a max.

 

Leicester team manager Nick Whitehead was quick to sing the praises of the young Sheffield team but was really disappointed with track conditions and the lack of a perpetual trophy for the winning team.

 

"Well done to the Sheffield team for putting such a young side out but they all done brilliant" said Whitehead.  "I was disappointed that the
the track was only swept when the under-19s started.  Why this is I don't know but it's the girls big day just as much as the under-19s, so it should of been swept for them too. Also why was there no shield for the winning team? Surely this  meeting should be treated like a British team not British club championship and a big cup or shield should be presented to the winning team.  It's now been three years and still no shield" said Whitehead disgruntledly.

1 Amy Crouch  15
2 Michelle Whitehead  15
3 Lucy Whitehead  16
4 Jenna Whitehead  9 (3)
5 Rebecca Hemsley  1 (1)

 

Final Result

Leicester 56, Ipswich 47, Wednesfield 37, Sheffield 18