PIRATES star Jason Crump admitted he was "gutted" they lost 46-44 at Coventry after he suffered a rare breakdown while leading heat 13 on Friday night.

With Poole Castle Cover only trailing 37-35 going into that race, the world champion got out of the gate in front of Coventry pair Scott Nicholls and Chris Harris.

But as he stormed into the second bend, with team-mate Craig Boyce tucked into third place, Crump's engine packed up.

Then Boyce trailed home last, passed by Harris, and what might have been a Poole 4-2, or at the least a 3-3, turned into a Bees 5-1.

That propelled them 42-36 ahead with only two races to go and Pirates' chance of winning the Elite League clash slipped away.

Crump said: "In my opinion, we were the best team over 15 heats, but things just didn't go our way.

"Doyley broke down, I broke down when I was pretty sure I would win that race and Bjarne got caught out a couple of times in dodgy situations.

"Troy also broke down in heat 14 so it just wasn't our night because I think man-for-man we were a better side.

"Hopefully it is a sign of good things to come. If we had got 45 points you couldn't say the home side deserved to win. In the end we were unlucky."

Looking back on his mechanical gremlin, Crump added: "I don't know what happened.

"We didn't get the chance to look. I just jumped on my other bike for heat 15. I can't tell you what it was."

Poole team manager Neil Middleditch said: "I'm really gutted as well because Coventry didn't win it, we lost it.

"Unfortunately the engine failures cost us.

"If Jason had won heat 13 that would have left us just two points behind with two races to go and I think we could have pulled it off."