POOLE Pirates have taken delivery of new shale in a bid to “improve the racing” at Wimborne Road, promoter Danny Ford confirmed.

Track conditions have been mixed this season, due to a combination of factors.

With recent spells of hot and dry weather as well as track man Terry Chrabaszcz missing some fixtures due to illness, there have been hurdles for Pirates to overcome, which have seen some meetings start with the track too heavily watered and the latter heats seeing a lot of the surface worn away.

Despite that, there have been some entertaining battles, notably heat nine last week, where Zach Cook and Ben Cook defeated in-form Oxford Cheetahs star Scott Nicholls.

Recent Swindon Robins visiting boss Alun Rossiter also said: “The track was the best I’ve seen it in a long time.”

Discussing the surface ahead of tonight's home meeting against Plymouth Gladiators (7.30pm), Ford told the Daily Echo: “I think we probably watered it a little bit late (last week) and then the track was very, very good for the mid-part of the meeting, where we built up a comfortable lead.

“Then it just deteriorated a little bit towards the end. We’re making adjustments and always learning, always improving. We had Terry back, although he wasn’t able to do the entire meeting, he was here for the start of it and I think that showed with the improved track.

“We’re always learning, we’re going to make adjustments and hopefully it will be even better this week.

“We’ve got to be better and improve each week. While we can make excuses and say it wasn’t the way we wanted it, ultimately that’s down to us and we’re doing everything we can to provide a good race surface.

“We’ve just taken delivery of a load of new shale that’s just come, that we’re going to add periodically over the season just to give it a little bit more on the track, which hopefully will improve the racing.

“Even though we saw probably the race of the season last week!”

Tonight’s meeting is sponsored by the Poole and District Branch of the Royal Marines Association, with a collection for the charity to be held during the interval.