FIFTY ONE THE LAST TIME

It is the 51st day of 2020 and Poole's most common score last season was 51 points, recording it on a total of four occasions, including twice in the space of three days last September.

After beating Ipswich 51-39 at Wimborne Road on the 16th, the Pirates travelled to King's Lynn on the 19th and found producing race winners a tough task in the first four heats. But a 5-1 from Brady Kurtz and Nico Covatti in heat 5 was enough to level the match scores and from there on in Poole were always looking the better side.

Whilst it was the Stars who broke that 15-all deadlock with a 4-2 advantage and held the lead through the seventh, the Pirates turned things around totally as Ricky Wells and Covatti clocked a 5-1 over Stars' guest for the night Chris Harris to lead themselves by two points. It was a short-lived led as Harris and Wells met again in the next race and the ex-British GP champion kept Wells at bay whilst Erik Riss led Jack Holder. Scores once more equal, 27-27 and nine heats accounted for.

Unbeaten Robert Lambert won heat 10 the heat being shared though and then came three straight heat gains for the Pirates as they built an eight point lead, that included Lambert dropping his only point of the night when Kurtz prevailed in heat 13. Crucially a Harris retirement when in a scoring position  handed Poole a heat share in the penultimate race, leaving the Pirates on the brink of a four point haul, enough to move them into top spot in the league and needing just to avoid a heat defeat to make it happen.

Holder and Nicolai Klindt did just that, and emphatically, with a 5-1 to make the score 51-39 in favour of the Pirates and leave Poole top of the table ahead of the play-offs.

For the record, those other two 51-pointers were on 27th May against Swindon and 17th June against Wolverhampton both recorded at Wimborne Road and therefore, against all three play-off qualifiers Poole had achieved an identical home result against them!