PIRATES skipper Danny King revealed a rule when travelling in his van was not to talk about speedway until setting foot on a racetrack.

The former British champion was speaking after his fine night’s work against Newcastle Diamonds at Wimborne Road on Wednesday, scoring 13+1 in helping his team to a commanding 58-32 success.

Poole make the lengthy trip north to visit the Redcar in SGB Championship action tomorrow (7.30pm).

But King insisted he would not be overthinking anything ahead of the battle with the Bears.

The Maidstone-born charger told the Daily Echo: “Speedway is a funny game and you can overthink things a lot.

“I have a rule in my van that we don’t talk about speedway until we get to the track.

“If you are going to a track you don’t enjoy, you can almost talk yourself out of it before you get there.

“Certainly, on a day like Wednesday when it was raining hard, you don’t want to be thinking ‘is it on? Is it off?’. You need to do something, take your mind off it, have some fun.

“I just found myself as a youngster, going to a track I may have ridden badly at last time thinking ‘oh it was really grippy last time, I couldn’t turn last time’.

“You almost talk yourself out of it and get yourself in a negative frame of mind before you turn up. Now I get there, I turn up, I look at the track and then I start making my thoughts.

“Most of the time it’s fine, you can just set your bike up and enjoy your racing.”

While not wishing to overcomplicate his own process, King said he was always on hand to help others in his team perform.

He attended a practice session aiding youngster Nathan Ablitt with his starts on Tuesday, as well as taking the reserve’s bike out at Wimborne Road a few weeks ago to help with his setup.

“Nathan was the only one we sort of didn’t know much about but even him, he is trying so hard and is getting closer and closer every week to where he wants to be. It’s nice to see,” said King.

“He has just had a few concerns and he wasn’t sure how to set the bike up, so he asked me to go out and do some laps and see what I thought.

“I did, came back and gave him a bit of feedback. I will do anything I can to help the boys – that’s the captain’s role and I like playing that part.

“I drilled it into them on press day. That is what I am here for. He can pick up the phone, day or night and I will always answer and do my best to help.

“If it’s lending you an engine or whatever it is. It’s really nice that he had the confidence to come and talk to me and ask me.”