REACTION: CAPTAIN COOK TEAM RIDES PIRATES TO VICTORY

The 'Wessex Marine' Pirates extended Poole Speedway's unbeaten run at the ECCO Arena on Teeside to five matches, when a strong rally in the final third of the meeting resulted in a Poole victory by 49-41 and banked the aggregate bonus point putting the Pirates two points clear at the top of the SGB Cab Direct Championship table.

The Pirates secured the win through some excellent team riding, masterminded by captain Ben Cook, who just seems to revel at the ECCO Arena. The proud skipper admitted "it was a good night and obviously it didn't start too well losing Vinnie (Foord) but we had to dig deep for sure and try and do it without him, but, you know, we kinda struggled at the start but once we got dialled in it was really good and um, we showed what we can do and got the win which is what we wanted. Me and Rich (Richard Lawson) had a couple of good races tonight and that is what it is all about. You got to be able to do some good team riding like that and that is what wins meetings and so, yeah, it is all nice when it works out. Sometimes it doesn't but tonight was our night."

Foord's loss came about under bizarre circumstances. On the parade lap his throttle stuck open and he collided heavily with the airfence and limped groggily away to continue preparing for the meeting. Then in his first ride he became the victim of a tight first turn and ended up into the fence again, albeit the one diametrically opposite and the force of that one was enough for him to withdraw from the meeting, leaving his fellow reserve Sam Hagon needing to cover his remaining rides.

Opening with an advantage through Lawson and Tobias Thomsen in heat one, the Pirates then began to fall behind their hosts, although kept the Bears within striking distance. Falling to a six point deficit when conceding a 4-2 in heat ten, the Pirates then used the tactical option to rest Hagon in heat 12, in favour of super skipper Ben Cook. In a well calculated plan, partner Tom Brennan went to the outside and Ben kept in tight and as the pair left the second turn they had clear distance over Dan Gilkes and went on to secure the 5-1. Cook then paired up with Lawson for an even sweeter maximum score, the pair nodding to each other on the second lap as they realised they had control of the heat over Charles Wright and Danny King. Brother Zach (Cook) came to the party by winning heat fourteen and with Hagon taking third place, the bonus point was guaranteed and overall victory was just a second place away. But the captain and Lawson wanted to go out in style with another superb maximum heat score, pronouncing mission accomplished.

Scores
REDCAR 41 ,Danny King 9 (3,3,2,1,0) ,Jordan Jenkins 8 (1,3,2,2) ,Charles Wright 7+1 (2,1',3,0,1) ,Dan Gilkes 6+1 (3,1,1',1) ,Jason Edwards 6 (0,2,3,1) ,Jake Mulford 3 (3,0,0,0,0) ,Ben Trigger 2+1 (1,0,1',RS)
POOLE 49 ,Ben Cook 15+2 (2,3,3,2',2',3) ,Richard Lawson 13+1 (3,2,3,3,2') ,Tom Brennan 9 (2,2,2,3) ,Sam Hagon 5+2 (2,1',0,1',0,TS,1) ,Zach Cook 4+1 (0,1',0,3) ,Tobias Thomsen 3 (1,0,2,R) ,Vinnie Foord 0 (N2,NS,NS,NS)

Photo Credit Colin Poole
Match report and heat details