Lubos Tomicek's best performance for Newcastle on a saturated Brough Park track last night helped the Diamonds beat Glasgow Tigers 48-42 in a Premier Trophy match.
Rain, which washed away the first clash between the clubs on Sunday in Glasgow, did its best to ruin the Byker affair as well and there was a 50-minute hold-up in proceedings between heats two and three while mopping up operations took place.
Some riders were tentative when racing resumed and there were numerous falls, but Tomicek raced as though conditions were perfect and proved brilliant back-up for Diamonds' star James Grieves, who excelled against his parent club.
Newcastle were trailing 19-17 when the Grieves-Tomicek pairing came up with the first 5-1 of the match in heat seven and, after wins for Paul Bentley and Shane Parker with good support from their partners had put Glasgow in the lead again at 31-29, the lethal Diamonds duo did the trick once more.
This was by far Tomicek's finest four laps at Byker as he brilliantly cut under Bentley and Czech ace George Stancl to join Grieves up front in heat 11. Stancl, who had won his first two races, gave chase but came a cropper on the last bend of the second lap.
With the Diamonds leading by two points, team manager George English then brought Tomicek into heat 12 in place of Claus Kristensen who, along with former Berwick colleague Josef Franc, looked unhappy in the wet conditions.
The young Czech again made light of the tricky surface to dash away to victory while all manner of things, including falls for all the other three riders, were going on behind him.
Tigers' captain Shane Parker then scored his third win of the match when he became the only man to defeat Grieves in heat 13 to cut Glasgow's deficit to just four points.
But, with the track drying out, the diminutive Franc delighted his army of fans at Brough Park by taking the penultimate heat, while Tomicek grabbed the match-winning third place point with a splendid outside overtake of Matthew Wethers.
Tomicek said later: "I hope I will have the same score many more times for Newcastle."
NEWCASTLE: James Grieves 14, Lubos Tomicek 10, Phil Morris 6, Jamie Robertson 5, Josef Franc 5, Christian Henry 4, Claus Kristensen 4.
GLASGOW: Shane Parker 13, George Stancl 7, Trent Leverington 6, James Cockle 5, Matthew Wethers 5, Paul Bentley 5, James Birkinshaw 1.
