THE scorechart tells it all as the Buildbase Bees got their away Elite League campaign off to a flyer to take five points out of five over the weekend.
Rarely can there have been a more complete away team performance as the Bees side functioned in exactly the way in which it had been put together to do.
Minimising their last places has been a particular strength over recent times, but to collect just three of them all evening at an away venue was a remarkable achievement - as was the twelve bonus points which they clocked up.
All of which meant that Eastbourne's ten heat wins - five of them for the unbeaten Nicki Pedersen - were convincingly cancelled out, and more, as Bees collected four 5-1s, three of them in the first six races to establish control followed by a virtual knockout blow in Heat 11.
And after the somewhat scrappy start to Friday's fixture at Brandon, Bees have put together a very strong sequence of races to clearly map out their intentions for the season, having the points wrapped up at Arlington in time to give skipper Scott Nicholls a rest from Heat 15 duty as both Chris Harris and Billy Janniro had their best nights of the season so far.
And also evident was the team-riding coming together so early in the season, another clear benefit of being able to track the same line-up across successive years.
The early stages provided a mirror image of the home match as Nicholls and Janniro avenged their Brandon 1-5 against David Norris and Dean Barker, Norris missing the start from gate 2 and seeing his early challenge thwarted - and the reverse performance continued in Heat 2 with Cameron Woodward and Lewis Bridger getting the better of Morten Risager and Martin Smolinski to immediately level the scores at 6-6.
The Eagles took the lead for the only time in the meeting with the only 4-2 for either side, Pedersen taking his first race win of the night ahead of Rory Schlein, who almost managed to get through in the closing stages - but Bees immediately overturned the deficit in Heat 4 as Harris and Risager made fine starts and eased clear, helped by a spot of miscommunication between the Eagles riders midway through the race which all but ended their challenge.
Pedersen made it two out of two, holding off Nicholls to win Heat 5, but that man Harris was at it again in the next, and this time it was a morale-boosting second place taken by Martin Smolinski who has endured such a confidence-sapping start to the season. But his defence of second place ahead of Norris will hopefully give him the lift he needs - and it gave Bees the lift they needed in this meeting as it put them into a six point lead.
A sequence of shared races followed, with the Eagles electing to switch their reserves across Heat 7 and 8 but with no reward obtained from that strategy. Davey Watt, who otherwise endured a troubled night, raced away from Schlein and Olly Allen who held off Bridger comfortably enough, and Heat 8 was a similar story with Barker scoring his only points of the night by holding off Janniro's challenge with Woodward making a bad error on the second lap and losing any chance of third place.
Pedersen, who certainly did not race well clear of his Bees opponents, was again a winner in Heat 9 as Andersson failed to finish the race, and the fourth shared heat in a row came in Heat 10 with Norris passing Allen to take the win, but Schlein mounting an excellent protection act as he covered every inch of the track to keep Barker at bay and ensure that Bees took a 3-3 from the race.
The key move came in Heat 11 with Nicholls and Janniro, such a strong partnership at both home and away, extending the advantage to ten points by romping clear of Watt - and at 38-28 it was hard to see a way back in for the Eagles.
The only option for Trevor Geer was to give Pedersen the black and white helmet colour for Heat 12 and the Dane duly obliged by bringing six points back - but with Schlein and Smolinski packing in for second and third, the damage was limited to a 6-3 and with the one and only tactical move completed, Bees still had a seven point lead to defend.
Norris rode well to win Heat 13 ahead of Nicholls and Harris, but Watt was not a factor in the race and that left Bees approaching the finish line - and it was Allen who took them over that line with a trademark start to win a re-run Heat 14 after Andersson had come down on the first bend. The final heat was re-started too, after Harris had come down, but at the second attempt he recovered and managed to pass Norris on the run-in as Janniro held on to second and Pedersen completed his maximum.
So after the recent years have seen poor starts to the season, there can be no complaints about the way in which Bees have kicked off this year with a full house of points from their two clashes with the Eagles. An away match at Ipswich, so unfortunately now without Mark Loram, follows, and Bees will be looking to establish themselves right up amongst the early leaders - right from the start!