DANNY Ford reserved special praise for Poole Pirates’ track staff for their efforts in ensuring Wednesday’s meeting against Berwick Bandits was completed.

It was an incident-packed contest from heat one, which was re-run twice due to a big crash suffered by Lewis Kerr and then Richard Lawson breaking the tapes.

Later in the meeting the air fence around the second bend needed replacing after Sam Hagon came tumbling down, before a lengthy delay in heat eight.

Bastian Borke suffered a heavy fall and was taken to hospital, with two ambulances out on track and some running repairs needed to hold together a fence panel on the back straight.

The meeting did eventually reach a natural conclusion, at around 10.30pm, Poole running out 52-38 winners.

“Credit to the medical staff and my track team for getting that meeting back underway,” Ford told the Daily Echo.

“To come out of that nasty-looking crash and a 37-minute delay is just testament to them and the hard work that they put in to getting that meeting back underway.

“I’m grateful to all of them, and both teams obviously.

“Both sets of riders wanted to continue and that was fantastic to see.

“The injury looked horrible. It was a horrible crash.

“But I’m hearing good reports that Bastian’s injury isn’t as bad as first thought, so that’s encouraging.”

He added: “It was a bit of a strange night, a little bit disjointed.

“But there was nothing we could do about it. There was some hard racing out there and when there’s two evenly-matched teams, you’re going to get some incidents.

“That’s what we saw. The delays are unfortunate, but it’s just part of the racing unfortunately.

“We want to see hard racing and that kind of comes with the territory.”

Discussing the running repairs to the fence, Ford added: “We’re pretty experienced now with most situations.

“We’ve got every avenue covered. We just had to tie up the fence a little bit and we’ll re-cement that over the coming days and get that sorted for Wednesday.

“Credit to my guys, they’re so well prepared and everything is in their stride.

“You have to wonder if other clubs would have handled it quite the same way or maybe taken the easy option and abandoned the meeting.

“The guys work so hard down here and it’s a credit to them.”

Bournemouth Echo: Danny Ford praised the work done by Poole Pirates' track staff

Asked about unseen work the track staff do each week, Ford added: “Poole Speedway wouldn’t run without those guys, as simple as that.

“Obviously it was an incident-filled night for them, having to change airbags and tie up fence posts, so they certainly earned their keep last night, bless them.

“But they’re fantastic. They’re a great bunch of people and, quite simply, this sport doesn’t run without those volunteers.

“If there is anything to say about Wednesday night, it is we can thank our hard-working volunteers.”

Poole return to action tomorrow, away at Plymouth Gladiators in the BSN Series (7pm).

Having won 58-32 in the reverse fixture, all Pirates need to progress to the semi-finals is to clinch the aggregate bonus point.