The Hammers comfortably won this first leg of their Knockout Cup replay with their near rivals.

The Rockets only managed two heat winners, and that was in the final two races when the track was beginning to ride slicker but by that time the Hammers had ensured they would be holding a healthy advantage to take to the Hoddesdon for the return.

The Hammers success was spearheaded by Leigh Lanham, who reeled off four successive wins from his first four rides, and Joonas Kylmakorpi who was only denied a fourth heat win on the night when a plug lead came adrift in heat five as he was about to storm down the home straight.

Heat advantages in the first four races allowed the Hammers a 10 point lead but the visitors then utilised the contentious "double points" facility in an effort to reel back the deficit.

Kylmakorpi's misfortune denied Arena their fifth successive heat advantage although Henning Bager and Kelvin Tatum gained an emphatic heat 6 full house before Lanham slipped his field to take the next leaving his side 29-16 ahead.

Bager lead heat 8 for two laps before he blew an engine but the excellent teenage prospect Jason King took the chequered flag to mitigate his colleague's ill-luck.

The Hammers heat leaders, Kylmakorpi, Tatum and Lanham added successive wins before Kylmakorpi produced the best gate of the night to slip his field and power his way to a heat 12 win taking 0.1 seconds off the track record and set a new time of 58.9 seconds.

Lanham scorched out of the traps in heat 13 but Tatum and Nigel Sadler were left short of racing room although referee Colin Reeve allowed proceedings to continue with former England captain Tatum recovering to take third place giving Arena a 51-32 lead.

Arena promoter Ronnie Russell was delighted and said: "We dominated the first half of the meeting and hopefully we have done enough to earn the right to meet Newcastle in the next round.

"All the team showed a commendable attitude with a steely determination to succeed I thought Kylmakorpi was awesome."

Published Monday, May 26, 2003

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