REACTION: ROWE RUNS RIOT THEN RUSHES OFF TO RIGA

Filing a score of paid thirteen from six rides, Anders Rowe celebrated his call up for Team GB in this week's SON2 as the Pirates banked another two league points, although they fell narrowly shy of making it a full yield of three points as the Monarchs Oxford Cheetahs snatched the aggregate bonus point.
 

Holding a fourteen point advantage from the respective fixture at Sandy Lane, the visitors were always strong favourites to secure the bonus but the Pirates were rampant in the early stages and had wiped out that advantage within the first seven heats. 

Rowe stormed to a massive victory in that seventh heat, his second impressive win of the night and he still had another race triumph and a paid win in his locker, adding one more point from two other rides. 

Celebrating his rider of the night nomination, and a second tier career personal best, Anders admitted "yeah it was good out there, I just went out, had fun and raced my bikes really and that is when the points come. I didn't really do a lot to the bikes. I Had the same setup, but the engine had just come back from service.  I changed the back sprocket by going down a sprocket and changed the jet but that was it, and yeah it was good, the track was good and I could really race the bike." Talking of the heat that got away from him, Rowe claimed "I swallowed a stone on the second lap when I ran a last and it didn’t go down too well!"
Rowe will miss Poole's meeting at Scunthorpe on Friday because of the SON2 meeting in Latvia and he was dashing off for a flight to Poland where he, his father and a friend were going to collect his bikes and then endure a 14 hour drive to Riga. 

Poole never looked in danger of losing the meeting to the Cheetahs who were heavily reliant on Sam Masters (paid sixteen) but the battle for the bonus was always in the balance even after wiping out the deficit after those first seven heats. A cruel moment of misfortune for Ben Cook in heat nine when his bike packed up after leading for three and a half laps when he had looked like thwarting Oxford's tactical substitute move, arguably countered Scott Nicholls problems in his first two rides, packing up both times, the first when holding second place. But that heat ten result swung the aggregate point back towards Oxford and although Poole restored the two-legged advantage through Steve Worrall and Rowe in heat eleven, a fall when third for Nathan Ablitt denied the Pirates an opportunity to build on it in heat twelve. 
With Masters and Nicholls claiming a 4-2 in heat thirteen the meeting was heading to a potential super heat to decide the bonus, but a brilliant ride by Zach Cook to charge between Cameron Heeps and Jordan Jenkins, supported by a move from last to third by Rowe, before Jenkins fell, gave Poole the upper hand heading into heat fifteen but it was the Masters/Nicholls combination that sent the Cheetahs home with something to be boastful about.

POOLE 51 Anders Rowe 12+1 (3,3,3,0,2',1) ,Richard Lawson 10+1 (2,2',3,2,1) ,Steve Worrall 8+1 (3,2',3,0) ,Ben Cook 7 (2,2,R,3,FD) ,Zach Cook 6+2 (1',1',1,3) ,Kyle Newman 5+1 (1',3,1,RS) ,Nathan Ablitt 3+1 (2',1,RS,0)
OXFORD 39 Sam Masters 15+1 (3,3,2',1,3,3) ,Scott Nicholls 6+1 (R,R,3,1,2') ,Cameron Heeps 6 (0,2,RS,2,TS,0,RS,2) ,Lewis Kerr 5 (0,1,2,2) ,Jordan Jenkins 4+1 (3,0,1',FD) ,Luke Killeen 3 (1,RS,1,RS,1) ,Henry Atkins 0 (0,0,0,RS)