YOUNG gun Troy Batchelor returned to his old stomping ground at King's Lynn and finished a creditable seventh on his Elite League Riders' Championship debut.

Then the 20-year-old Poole Pirates ace, who had celebrated his latest birthday on Wednesday, revealed he had been riding on borrowed equipment.

The Queenslander, who had starred for the Norfolk outfit as they completed a Premier League and Cup double in 2006, shone like a beacon in front of his parent club's fans.

He might have been fortunate to grab two points from his first ride when Chris Harris and Fredrik Lindgren both fell, only a fraction of a second in time apart, and were both excluded from heat one.

But after a last in his next race, Batchelor mixed it well with the big boys to end up with a qualifying series score of 2-0-3-1-2 to narrowly miss out on a semi-final place.

Batchelor, only called up to ride in this meeting in place on injured Poole Castle Cover team-mate Jason Crump on Wednesday night, finished tied on eight points with Krzysztof Kasprzak.

But it was the Pole and former Pirate who got through to the semis on count back because he had beaten Batchelor into second place in heat 18.

Batchelor said: "It was a bit of a shame I missed out on the semis because I tried hard.

"The track was pretty atrocious in my first race and I changed the bike after I was last in the second one.

"It was a tough meeting, so seventh position was pretty good. It is like a heat 13 or 15 in an Elite League match in every race, so I think I did all right."

Batchelor added: "Some of my biggest sponsors were here, Roger Warnes Transport Ltd, who sponsored the meeting.

"So it was good I got the chance to ride in front of them.

"It definitely makes me want to ride in more big meetings like this.

"The only way to get better is to step up and that is what I was trying to do in this meeting."

Batchelor continued: "My own bikes were away being serviced because I didn't know that I would be riding in this meeting until Wednesday.

"I didn't have time to get anything ready so I asked Trevor Harding could I lease one of his engines and he said yes.

"It worked pretty good. Maybe I might have done better on my own set up. It is hard to say. I came away far from disgraced.

"After the first race, I thought I would be going home (because of the poor state of the track, which was watered too late in the day and had to be heavily re-graded for 15 minutes after heat five).

"But they fixed the track and it turned out to be a good night for me."