POOLE reserve star James Shanes admitted he had felt “a bit robbed” by the exclusion which had all but dashed his hopes of British under-21 final glory.

Shanes started Wednesday's meeting at Wimborne Road with three second places, putting him nicely on course for at least a place in the semi-finals.

But disaster struck in heat 15 when he collided with Nathan Greaves going into bend one, the Wolverhampton rider sent sprawling.

Shanes was stunned when referee Barbara Horley booted him out of the re-run after what appeared a classic case of first-bend bunching.

Loud boos rang out from the grandstand, while Shanes rushed to the pits telephone to plead his case.

However, the protests of the Puddletown ace fell on deaf ears and a third place in race 19 behind eventual winner Robert Lambert and Dan Bewley saw Shanes’s night end on seven points.

He said: “It’s fair to say I feel a bit robbed by that decision but it’s one of those things. I gave it my best shot and it was looking promising but it all went wrong.

“The referee said I straightened up and turned into Nathan. I was going to the inside and so was he. I was half a bike in front of him and yes, we did touch.

“But I would have thought that’s a perfect situation to say all four back. The referee clearly had a different perspective.

“The exclusion wound me up a little bit but I gave my last ride my all. I was trying the alternative line. It didn’t work as well as I thought it would but it would have been pointless running around the outside and ending up in the fence.”

Shanes is no stranger to racing on the continent having qualified for this season’s World Long Track Championship and lifted last year’s European grass track title.

He would have relished the chance to represent Great Britain in the World Under-21 Championship. But the 20-year-old knows he must now take his final opportunity to make the cut in 2018.

He said: “I would love to have got higher up the standings. Then it gives me a place in the world under-21s and it could have made me part of the GB thing.

“That’s one of those things and we’ll have to see what happens now. We’ll give it a go next year.”

It was not all bad news for Poole fans as 2016 Pirates hero Adam Ellis finished second, beaten only by maximum man Lambert.