News

Last Updated on Sunday 30th March 2003.

Wednesday 5th March 2003.

STAN IN FORM.

Houston asset Deon Standish took the New Zealand & South African Championship title, in Johannesburg, for the second year running last night.

The popular Kiwi, currently on loan to Division 1 outfit Tayside Buccaneers, raced to a 14 point haul to lift the crown and qualify for the Australasian Final in Sydney on Sunday. Stan will be hoping for better luck than last year when he crashed out of the Final with a broken thumb in his second ride.

His only defeat in the meeting came at the wheels of meeting runner up Luke Marriott (Huntingdon) in heat 2 and he is now concentrating his efforts on gaining a top 5 spot in the Australasian Final to qualify for the Overseas event later in the season. The real shock of the meeting was the non-qualification of Cumbernauld star Rory McMillan who seemed off the pace all night. His desparate attempt in his final race to get the 3 points required to see him through resulted in a hefty collision with the boards and a trip to hospital for the shaken rider.

However, Huntingdon's Leigh Langley made a steady comeback from a long injury lay off to make the top 6 and Sunday's Sydney Final. The other qualifiers were Jamie Kuerton (Aisha's Motor), Wayne Pareirra (Peterborough) and Ryan Harrington (Great Yarmouth).

Saturday 8th March 2003.

LINE UP ANNOUNCED.

Pirates have announced their line up for the opening match of the season at home to Waltham Abbey Hoods next Friday.

The line up shows no surprises with Jan Kirsten at 1 with Tomas Olsson at 2. Rickard Reiner and Martin Andersson team up in the middle of the team with Jamie Jackson, making his return from injury moving to number 5 as a pre caution. The reserves will be Karl Sweeney and Harry Moxon.

George Seymour, Pirates promoter said, 'There are no surprise in the racing order. However, everyone knows what's expected of them and one or two of them are riding to keep their place at the first change of average.'

'We know that Harry Moxon will be returning to Tipton after 6 and that Jamie McNab will be returning to us. That means changes may be made if we can strengthen up. We are under no illusions as to how tough this season will be and our prime objective is to establish a foothold in the SL by staying up.'

'We also know that Jacko will struggle initially as he returns to fitness but this may have it's own advantage as we may be able to bring in another 7 pointer after 6 matches.'

Saturday 15th March 2003.

HOME DEFEAT.

Waltham Abbey spoiled Pirates inaugural Super League debut last night when they took a narrow 46-44 victory from Craigburn Park.

The event coincided with Red Nose Day but it was more a case of Red Face Day for some of the squad as they failed to put in a reasonable display. However, Jan Kirsten had a superb debut with an 18 point paid maximum. 5 straight wins followed by a paid win in heat 15 but it wasn't enough to take the points.

Kirsten blasted, after the match, 'This is not good enough, I can't do it all on my own'. And, it must be said, he is quite right. Rickard Reiner and Martin Andersson (11 from 5 and 5+2 from 4) performed well but Tomas Olsson, Harry Moxon and Karl Sweeney were all disappointing. Jamie Jackson was also poor but he's not fit yet and when he recovers Pirates should go from strength to strength.

George Seymour said, 'Yes I'm disappointed but the Jacko factor plays large in this one. 5 points is way below what anyone would expect him to score but when he's fit again we shouldn't be too far away from being a quality outfit. In some ways it will benefit us as Jacko's GSA will drop and we can strengthen up massively after 6 matches.'

Monday 17th March 2003.

HOUSTON AWARDED ANOTHER BIG MEETING.

Pirates have, for the third year running, been awarded a world championship meeting.

In season 1 it was a World Under 21 quarter final, in season 2 it was the British final and this year, on Sunday 18th of May, Houston hosts a semi final of the World Under 21 championship.

With both Jamie Jackson and Jan Kirsten, champion of the previous 2 season's, tipped to do well it could see one or both make an appearance at 'home' for a place in the final.

The other semi final is just along the road at Aisha's Motor and Pirates will enter consultations to ensure that fans can attend both meetings that day. If approved the Houston semi final will start at 1pm with the second semi starting at 7pm at the Motor Arena.

Meanwhile, Jamie Jackson grabbed a British Final place despite a shaky return from injury at Craigburn Park last Friday. Jacko booked his place at London on May 11th with a 9 point return in his semi final at Tipton yesterday.

It wasn't all plain sailing for the young Englishman and he had to dig very deep after only scoring 1 from his opening 2 rides. However, he managed to ride through the pain barrier to take 2 wins and a second in his remaining rides to keep his World title hopes alive. He declared himself 'pleased but sore' after finishing 6th.

His 'racing myself fit' campaign continues tonight at Waltham Abbey where, along with Jan Kirsten, he represents the Pirates before visiting Aisha's Motor for the league match on Tuesday evening, his 4th match in 5 days. On this he commented, 'Yes it's hectic but I knew that I'd have to really test my fitness early on. After the match at Aisha's I have 9 days to recover and work on my fitness.'

Tuesday 18th March 2003.

BUCKS OPEN WITH A WIN.

The Bucks, Pirates YDL side have opened their campaign with a narrow 22-20 victory over Scottish rivals Aisha's Motor.

Dean Hart led the way with 9 from 4 with Seth Latimer contributing 6+2 from his first 3 before an engine failure in heat 7. Nik Mills trailed a last in his opening ride before winning his next 2 while Martyn Palmer could only manage 1+1 from 3.

Bucks led 21-15 with one race to go but Motor juniors managed a last heat 5-1 to add some respectability.

Meanwhile, Jan Kirsten slammed the Waltham Abbey track as dangerous after finishing 4th in the Essexy Exit individual. He continued, 'Action should be taken. The whole thing was farcical. Jacko is trying to get fit by taking part in as many matches as he can but this could have put him out for months. He was lucky not to hit one of the deeper ruts.'

'This goes for the entire field, quality riders deserve quality tracks. No doubt the stadium is the best but the track...that was dreadful.'

Wednesday 19th March 2003.

LOSS AT AISHA'S.

Pirates have crashed to their second league defeat in a close fought match at Aisha's Motor by a score of 42 to 48.

It was tight meeting but Pirates slipped up to a couple of tape exclusions in heats 11 and 12 when Jan Kirsten and Rickard Reiner were guilty of anticipating the start and being caught. These two races came after a run of 6 tied heats, a 5-1 to Pirates, another tied heat, a 5-1 to the hosts and an eight 3-3 saw the scores at 30-30.

Pirates slipped to a 2-4 and a 1-5 reverse to go 6 down. Another 2-4 in heat 13 allowed Jamie Jackson to partner the impressive Martin Andersson to a 5-1 and set up a last heat decider but another 4-2 to the home side, led by Danny Capirossi, saw the points stay at the Motor Arena.

It was a good display by most of the squad with Kirsten notching 8 from his 3 completed rides and Reiner recording 5 from 3, however, the tape exclusions mean their averages both take a tumble.

Jackson showed a return to something like his old self with 10+1 from 6 while Andersson recorded 9+2 from 5. Tipton loanee Harry Moxon showed up well with 6+1 from 5 but both Tomas Olsson and Karl Sweeney failed to make a major impact with only 3+1 from 4 and 1+1 frpm 4 respectively.

Promoter George Seymour said, 'Well done to Aisha's, they deserved the victory and took their chances when they presented themselves.'

'I feel that the two tape exclusions were crucial though. If it weren't for them I reckon we could have just about snuck a draw, however that takes nothing away from the home sides' performance tonight, especially Danny Capirossi.'

Saturday 22nd March 2003.

OPEN LINE UP.

Luke Mills' unfortunate hand injury in last weeks British Semi Final has meant a line up change for the forthcoming Dandy Design Scottish Open.

This has meant a place in the line up for current Division 1 riders champion Darren Edwards of Cardiff. Edwards also won the SL Riders championship in season 1. Houston's own Jan Kirsten did the opposite, winning the Division 1 crown in 2001 and the SL crown last season.

The star studded line up should ensure some tight racing for the Ł25,000 first prize and, on early season form, home star Jan Kirsten must be one of the favourites. Aisha's Motor's Daniel Capirossi, Cumbernauld's Rory McMillan, Andy Stark of Walsall and Michael Munns of Yeovil are also to be considered in this bracket as each of them has a SL CMA of over 9.00 this season.

Jason Nix (Weymouth) and Jamie Whittaker (Bexwell) must be considered outside bets as both are over 9.00 in Division 1. However, such is the quality of the entire field that no one can be discounted.

Tuesday 25th March 2003.

KIRSTEN WINS OPEN.

Jan Kirsten swept to take the Ł25,000 Dandy Design Scottish Open after a dramatic heat 18 to become the first Pirate to win the event in front of a record 5,306 crowd at Craigburn Park.

Rickard Reiner won the inaugural event 2 years ago but was a Bellchester asset at the time. Peter Korsten took it last year for Cumbernauld but was unable to defend his title after retiring at the end of the campaign.

JK got off to a slow start in heat 1 but picked his way through to second place before racking up 3 wins to move onto 11 points. Meanwhile, both Edwards and Stark were amassing the same number of points.

As fate would have it, all 3 were due to face each other in heat 18 to decide not only the winner but second and third too in what was a virtual title run off. Kirsten made the gate and held off both Stark in Edwards, who were taking close formation, before stretching clear on the last lap to ensure the title was his. Stark managed to pip Cardiff's Edwards on the run in to claim second.

The slick track caused a few problems to the likes of Danny Capirossi and Magnus Karlsson and they finished down the field as a result. Heat 6 was incident packed too as Rory McMillan took a tumble and withdrew from the meeting with bruising to his hand while Antonin Pavel fell in the re-run. He completed his rides but was a bit under par.

However, the huge crowd got the result they wanted and Kirsten again proved his quality. JK, it has to be said, has settled in well to his new home winning 9 out of his 11 races so far.

Friday 28th March 2003.

MISTAKES WERE MADE.

Pirates slumped to their third straight defeat, at Broom last night, to remain anchored to the foot of the SL table after three matches. The club are the only side in the entire division to have no points so far. However, the panic buttons are not being pressed just yet.

The match itself saw Broom come out as deserved 47-43 winners although they could only muster 6 race wins. The big difference was that on 5 of the 6 occasions that the home side had a rider first across the line they also took a third place. The five 4-2's and a 3-3 compares to three 4-2's and six tierd races when a Pirate was first home.

The top 4 and Harry Moxon performed reasonably well but young Nik Mills and Tomas Olsson failed to score and any team will struggle with only 5 riders scoring points. Rickard Reiner top scored with 13 from 5, obviously relishing his rider/coach role. Jamie Jackson had 11 from 6 but tired towards the end while Jan Kirsten returned 9 from 4. Martin Andersson had 4 from 4 which included a heat 14 win and Harry Moxon weighed in with 6+1 from 5.

But the big mistake seems to have come in heat 15 when George Seymour didn't put in World Champion Jan Kirsten. Top two scorers Jamie Jackson and Rickard Reiner were put in although Jackson was visibly tired after his heat 13 third place. With the score at the time standing at 41-43 for the visitors, and JK having defeated Lee Jarman twice previously, it's not inconceivable that Kirsten could have taken the win to secure a draw rather than a shattered looking Jacko trailing in last.

Seymour said, 'It's the second week running I've left out Jan as my policy is top two scorers race but I have to admit it's my mistake. I am now looking to recruit a team manager who can make these snap decisions. In hindsight I should have had Jan and Rickard out in heat 15 last night.'

'As for our poor run, we're not panicking. We've had 1 narrow home defeat and two away defeats which were both last heat deciders. Our top 4 are performing well even though Jacko is down on scoring due to regaining his fitness. Our problem is no support for the main guys. With the way our averages are going we will be able to strengthen our second string and reserve placings after 6 matches.'

Sunday 30th March 2003.

UNLUCKY KIRSTEN.

Double World Champion Jan Kirsten was unlucky not to take his second individual title of the week at Tipton today after blowing an engine when leading his opening heat. The unlucky Dane still managed to amass 9 points in total on his second bike but it could have been an entirely different story had he not suffered the mechanical misfortune in heat 1.

JK led easily before coming to a halt but followed this with 2 wins and a second to leave him on 8 points with only heat 20 remaining. That race featured eventual winner Lee Jarman who was sitting on 9 and Chris Kimble, JK and Ryan Harrington all on 8. Sy Parrish, Tomas Tronde and Danny Capirossi were all already on 10 points which set up a race which would see the winner in at least a run off for first.

As it was JK's second bike wasn't quite up to the task as Jarman pulled away to take the win with Kimble following in his wake to ensure a 4 man run off for second and third. Kimble took the second spot from home man Tronde with Parrish and Capirossi bringing up the rear.

JK finished in 6th place and said, 'No complaints, sometimes a bike fails and there's nothing you can do.'