GUNNESTAD: FOREVER A PIRATE

His British racing career began with Sheffield in 1991 but ostensibly Lars Gunnestad will always be best remembered as a Poole Pirate.
 

His six meetings for the Tigers paled into insignificance when compared to the 281 appearances Lars made as a Pirate between 1993 and 2002, with Poole fans only being deprived of this Norwegian superstar in 1999, a decision of his own-making after he had struggled during the 1998 season. 
Lars approached the management and asked to be replaced as he felt the need to return to his native home to take stock of his racing career. 

It had been tough for his large following of supporters to see his form plummet to such desperate measures as, from the time he first pulled on a Pirates race jacket he won the hearts of the Dorset faithful. In truth, he was seen donning a JTC Pirates race bib the previous season in the pits at the World U21 championship in Pfaffenhofen, Germany, a meeting where he finished fourth behind winner Leigh Adams and the other two rostrum occupants Mark Loram and Joe Screen, but ahead of certain Polish rider who went by the name Tomasz Gollob! Lars had actually been snapped up by the Poole promotional team of Mervyn Stewkesbury and Pete Ansell prior to that meeting after Sheffield had transfer listed him.

In his first year as a Pirate, Gunnestad increased his average from just under 7 to 8.77 and that figure continued to rise in 1995, despite sustaining a Good Friday broken scaphoid. Once recovered Lars' profile was to be further raised as he was called into the GP series as wildcard in the Danish GP at Copenhagen, a meeting in which he scored a highly creditable 14 points. 

His 1996 season saw him line-up with an average marginally under 10, a figure that he found tough to live up to and his early season form seemed to suffer for it. But he pulled his season around and eventually weighed-in with a nine-plus figure but missed out on extending his GP career when he failed to reach the GP Challenge from the international rounds. 
1997 was blighted by a shoulder injury, something that he openly accepts he never fully recovered from. 

After sitting out 1999, the new promotional team of Ford and Golding were keen to persuade him back to the UK, hoping to exploit his tantalisingly low average, a move that largely worked and with a plus seven point average achieved he was on the team-sheet again for 2001 and was also offered a Testimonial. Injury though on April 7th, this time sustained in Poland, thwarted his special year somewhat although he did surprise many with his quick recovery from a broken fibula, returning to the Pirates side for their visit to Oxford on May 18th!

He celebrated his testimonial meeting on August 30th, in front of a near capacity crowd but was not part of the 2002 Pirates set-up initially, until almost a year on from that Testimonial he responded to a call to provide cover for the injured Grzegorz Walasek. Lars, an inducted rider in the Pirates Hall of Fame, rode a total of 10 meetings in that post-testimonial season finishing his Poole career with a points tally with 2,662, a figure that positions the now 49 year old, in 9th place overall in the all-time Pirates statistics.