Reading thumped at Edinburgh.

Reading Racers first match of their Premier League northern tour, ended in a heavy 60-30 defeat to high-flying Edinburgh Monarchs on Friday evening. The Monarchs have been in excellent this season and on this showing look certain to be in the Premier League shake up.

Reading were forced to change their intended line-up prior to the start when Shane Colvin's guest replacement Joel Parsons picked up an injury at Wimbledon on Thursday evening. Reading drafted in a late replacement in Craig Branney.

Shane Parker set the pace for the evening, by winning heat one by a comfortable margin over Racers skipper Andrew Appleton. Monarchs Wayne Carter rode a good race for third place, with Racer Paul Clews bringing up the rear.

Edinburgh took maximum points in the reserves race in heat two, and two successive 4-2's in heats three and four, saw the Scottish club open up an early 17-7 lead. Janusz Kolodziej did give the Reading travelling army something to cheer when making a good inside passing manoeuvre on Magnus Karlsson in heat three.

Things got much worse for the Smallmead club, when two successive maximums for the Armadale men in heats five and six saw them storm into a commanding 27-9 lead. Heat seven saw Euphony Racers hit back, when Kolodziej and Jonas Davidsson made a rocket start from the tapes, to take a 5-1 heat advantageand peg the scores back to 28-14.

With Kolodziej again in good form for Reading, team manager Ivan Shears elected to send the Pole out in the next race as a 'golden double tactical substitute'. Despite starting from the back of the field, the Pole had soon passed Monarchs reserve Matt Wethers on the opening lap. The 19-year-old then set off to tackle Wayne Carter but after trying hard to make an inside pass on the Monarch he fell leaving Paul Clews, who won the race, as the lone Racers finisher.

Heat nine saw the home side race to their fourth maximum 5-1 of the evening, with skipper Peter Carr and Karlsson leaving Racers guest Garry Stead trailing in third place. The Kolodziej and Davidsson pairing got themselves a shared heat behind Parker in heat ten. But two 5-1's in heats eleven and thirteen saw the Monarchs make sure of all the points.

Two 4-2's in the final two races, also allowed the highly experienced Elite League star Shane Parker to complete a full 15-point maximum with his heat fifteen win. Kolodziej did manage to take second place for Reading ahead of Schlein and Davidsson.