Thousands of people watched live TV coverage of Highbridge-based Somerset Rebels’ speedway victory over Poole on Monday (August 20th).
The Premiership fixture attracted a bumper crowd at the Oaktree Arena, with world speedway champion Jason Doyle the main attraction as captain of the home side. The Rebels won 51 to Poole’s 39.
BT Sport presenter Natalie Quirk anchored the live TV coverage from a special area in the pits at the speedway track. During the evening, she interviewed members of the Rebels team, including world champ Jason Doyle, as pictured here.
Jason Doyle helped ensure the Rebels responded to manager Garry May’s request ‘to bounce back in style’ after conceding their unbeaten home run last Wednesday.
A 51-39 victory over in-form Poole gave the Rebels the confidence boost they needed and restored them back to the top of the SGB Premiership table, ahead of their second home meeting this week on Wednesday when they face basement side Leicester.
Against the Pirates the Rebels opened solidly with a treble of 4-2 heat advantages but the visitors were back on level terms after just five heats. The Rebels response though was instant as Doyle and Summers fired in a 5-1 and steadfastly denied the visitors any opportunity to come back a second time.
A crucial heat 9 5-1 from Richard Lawson and battling Nico Covatti interrupted a string of shared heats and gave the Rebels something of a stranglehold and just three heats later Covatti squashed Poole’s tactical ride as he led home Brady Kurtz by some distance.
With the immaculate Doyle pairing up with Holder in heat 13 for another maximum advantage the Rebels assured themselves of victory but top spot in the table wasn’t confirmed until they ensured the Pirates would leave pointless, the Dorset side needing to gain six points more than the Rebels over the final two heats.
The Pirates best performer Nicolai Klindt played his part in the bargain and for a while reserve Woryna was in place of a 5-1 but a telling ride by Bradley Wilson-Dean – who was replacing fellow reserve Jake Allen – to pass Woryna rendered the Pirates facing a tough ask in heat 15 needing maximum points against the unbeaten Doyle, who again would have Holder backing him up.
The pressure was too great on out-of-sorts Poole number one Brady Kurtz and he acquired his second starting offence disqualification of the night and with that any realistic chances of holding on to the Premierships premier position faded to.
Doyle went on to make it five from five but Garry May was full of universal praise for this side:- “The lads rode well tonight. We knew we had to get off to a good start and put some pressure on Poole and we did just that.”
“Jason was superb but we had good scoring down through the side. That was a valuable three points in the bag for us and we just need to keep plugging away.”
