WOLVERHAMPTON star Tai Woffinden suffered a wrist injury in the highly emotional Gary Peterson Memorial Trophy at Monmore on Monday.
Woffinden was forced to pull out of the meeting after a crash with Ryan Fisher, who was the eventual winner of the event, in Heat 4.
The annual tribute to Peterson was made all the more poignant following the tragic news about Lakeside skipper Lee Richardson in Poland 24 hours earlier.
An immaculate minutes silence was observed, before the riders showed their mental strength and courage by serving up some excellent action.
Woffinden was bidding for a fourth successive victory in the event and was the pre-meeting favourite but was forced to withdraw from the meeting after three rides.
He comfortably won heat 1, but Fisher appeared to lift on turn two in heat 4, and collided with Woffinden. Both riders fell, with Woffinden taking a heavy landing into the fence at the start of the back straight. After on track attention for a wrist injury he won the re-run.
He then made a slow start to heat 7, picked his way through the field, but ran out of time to make a serious challenge on the impressive Wells' lead.
Proctor and Jorgensen performed well, while Stead recovered from a slow start to qualify for the semi finals, and Matej Kus was impressive.
Much attention was focused on the two unattached Scandinavian's. Randrup made some useful starts, and Thorsell, although failing to score looked to have something about him. In heat 5 he produced a neat cut back on the first turn, and was lying third before drifting wide on the last lap and clipping the fence. In heat 11, he slowly slipped from first to last, but was always in contention.
In the first semi final, Proctor and Kus raced side by side, before the Aussie slipped inside off the first turn, while Wells took an easy victory over Fisher in the second semi.
Fisher and Kus went to ground in a closely fought first turn of the Final. As Kus missed the start in the re-run, Proctor led, but drifted wide on the last bend of lap three creating a superb last lap, with Fisher, Wells and Proctor going over the line in a blanket finish, with Fisher just taking the victory.
GARY PETERSON MEMORIAL SHIELD, Wolverhampton QUALIFYING SCORES: Ty Proctor 10, Ricky Wells 9, Simon Stead 9, Matej Kus 8, Tai Woffinden 8, Thomas Jorgensen 8, Ryan Fisher 7, Anders Mellgren 5, Kenny Ingalls 5, Marc Randrup 2, Micahel Palm Toft 1, Jacob Thorssell 0, Ashley Morris (reserve) 0
GRAND FINAL 1 Ryan Fisher (Plymouth) 2 Ricky Wells (Wolverhampton/ Sheffield) 3 Ty Proctor (Wolverhampton)