Lakeside recorded their first Elite league win of the season when they beat last year's runners-up Swindon 50-45 at the Arena-Essex Raceway on Friday night despite the absence of top rider Andreas Jonsson from the side because of injury.

His replacement, guest Davey Watt, made an immediate favourable impression with the home fans by racing over the finishing line ahead of Leigh Adams in the opening race to set the Hammers on their way with a heat advantage after Leigh Lanham collected a point.

It was to prove the only points that former Hammers favourite and Grand Prix rider Adams was to drop on the night but although the Australian attempted to hold his side together, the weakness of the lower order was all too evident as the home side offered effective contributions throughout the order with captain Adam Shields leading the way with a 12 top score.

Reserves Ricky Kling and Lubos Tomicek gathered a 5-1 in heat two and the home side had raced into a 25-11 advantage after six races with further heat maximums from Jonas Davidsson and Lubos Tomicek before the Watt and Lanham combination displayed their effectiveness.

The Robins response was to resort to the "double points" initiative in successive races with Mads Korneliussen taking a tactical ride in heat seven ahead of a tactical substitute outing for Adams in the next race.

Neither ploy worked to full extent with Korneliussen unable to find a way past the impressive Davidsson as the visitors took a 5-3.

Then Adams, starting off a 15-metre handicap, was impeded by his own partner James Wright at the first turn, although he managed to work his way steadily through the field to pick off Tomicek and then Lanham in successive laps in well-timed manoeuvres.

Leading 31-22, the Hammers added to their advantage when Shields and Joonas Kylmakorpi raced to a comfortable 5-1 but that was to spell the end of the Hammers dominance as Swindon outscored their hosts 14-22 over the remaining six races including a last race 5-1 over Shields and Davidsson to add respectability to the scoreline.

"The win caps a terrific 24 hours of action for us," purred co-promoter and team manager Jon Cook.

"We got through to the Craven Shield final after drawing at Peterborough on Thursday and then beat Swindon to notch our first league points of the season.

"If I had to be critical of our performance against Swindon, I would have to say that I was a little disappointed that we fell away in the second half of the meeting and that's something I'll be discussing with the boys.

"But overall, I'm satisfied, all the riders got amongst the points and once again Jonas (Davidsson) showed the type of form that we knew he possessed."

Scorers for Lakeside: D Watt 8, L Lanham 5+1, A Shields 12, J Kylmakorpi 5+2, J Davidsson 10, R Kling 5+2, L Tomicek 5+3.

Swindon: L Adams 17, J Wright 0, T Batchelor 8+2, M Korneliussen 14+1, T McGowan 2, P Morris 4+1, S Alden 0.