NEIL Middleditch was probably wishing he had left Troy Batchelor’s engine in Chandlers Ford.

According to Sky’s commentary team, the Pirates team manager picked up the Peterborough star’s equipment from Craig Boyce’s workshop, after the Pirates legend had given it a bit of a tune-up, and delivered it first-class style, to the East of England Showground last night.

Batchelor went on to score paid 13 as Peterborough became the first team to lower Pirates’ colours on their travels on TV this season.

But Poole stole at least a percentage of the bragging rights and kept their impressive season well on track with a losing away point.

Much of that was down to Chris Holder once again, whose heat 13 heroics, and a certain dose of revenge on Nicki Pedersen for his hard move on the Aussie during the British Grand Prix final, saw Poole’s top man keep his team in the hunt.

Pedersen, of course, wouldn’t be Pedersen without a little controversy and this time it was Holder’s pal Darcy Ward who felt the force of the Dane.

The three-times world champion shut the door in brutal fashion to stop Ward bursting round the outside during the re-run of heat six.

That caused Ward to clip Pedersen’s dirt deflector with his front wheel and the young Aussie packed up, but the world under-21 champion gives as good as he gets and sarcastically applauded Pedersen for the remainder of the heat, much to the Dane’s amusement.

But rather than galvanise Ward, so key for Poole Castle Cover in recent weeks, the fire in his belly burned too brightly and he managed just two points from his remaining two rides. Middleditch quite rightly left the teenager out of the final race.

Davey Watt bagged a tactical win in heat seven and finished with 12 points. Indeed, the Pirates skipper looked well on the pace until a last place in heat 15 ended his night on a sour note.

It was Poole’s middle order that will concern Matt Ford most, however, with both Jason Doyle and Dennis Andersson struggling with paid three and paid four respectively.

But all that aside, once again Ford’s men did enough to salvage something from a tough night as Holder stormed to victory in front of Pedersen and Batchelor in the final nominated heat.

Peterborough 49: Nicki Pedersen (2*-3-3-2-2) 12+1, Linus Sundstrom (3-2*-1-2*) 8+2, Troy Batchelor (3-2-3-3-1*) 12+1, Norbert Kosciuch (1-1*-2*-2) 6+2, Krzysztof Buczkowski (2-2-2-0) 6, Taylor Poole (2-0-0) 2, Richard Lawson (1*-1*-0-1*-0) 3+3.

Pirates 44: Chris Holder (1-3-3-3-3) 13, Dennis Andersson (0-0-2*-1) 3+1, Davey Watt (2-6^-1-3-0) 12, Jason Doyle (0-1-0-1*) 2+1, Darcy Ward (3-0-1-1) 5, Kyle Newman (0-1-0) 1, Renat Gafurov (3-0-3-0-2) 8.