ADAM Ellis hopes he has concocted a formula for success at the home of the Poole Pirates that can aid the Swindon Robins when they visit Wimborne Road on Bank Holiday Monday.

 

Ellis shrugged off his early-season woes by claiming the runners-up spot at the British U21 final on the south coast on Wednesday evening, a welcome boost having endured a troubled start to his 2017 campaign.

Dropping just a single point from his five programmed rides, the 21 year old also had to give second best to King’s Lynn rider Robert Lambert in the final, but nevertheless secured a place in the World U21 qualifiers, which get under way at venues in the Czech Republic, Italy and Sweden next month.

Robins teammate Zach Wajtknecht also rode well just missing out on a place in Wednesday’s semi finals, but Ellis believes he and his teammate accrued some valuable time on a track they will return to with the Robins for Monday’s SGB Premiership showdown (6pm)

“It was a pretty good meeting. They (the individual meetings) are always difficult because everyone wants to do well but after the start to the season I’ve had it was good to get second place,’’ he told the Swindon Advertiser.

“Of course I’m a bit disappointed because this was my last shot at this specific title, but Robert (Lambert) was pretty quick.

“It’s good to put up a good result in one of the individual meetings and it means I’ve got into the World (U21) qualifiers so that’s something to look forward to.

“But there are a lot of meetings with Swindon to focus on first.’’

Ellis has featured in all Robins’ Premiership meetings to date - he missed the back-to-back Knockout Cup successes over Rye House with a broken scaphoid earlier this month - but built on the improvement he showed with a season-best paid seven points in last Friday’s win at Somerset with his individual display at Poole.

“After Somerset last week where I had a pretty good meeting and went out and scored some points there and now the final, it feels like stuff is getting back to where it should be,’’ added the rider, who featured in Poole colours last season.

“I got a new engine last week and that seems to have worked pretty well and I think I’ve found a good set-up. It just needed a decent meeting to give me the kick-start.

“It was nice to find a good set-up down there (Poole) and hopefully that’s something we can take on into the meeting on Monday. Zach also had a few laps there so hopefully we can look forward to a good meeting with Swindon there because we’ve proved we can ride well.

“David (Bellego), Nick (Morris) and Jason (Doyle) have been going well and Brad (Wilson-Dean) seems to in decent nick as well so we can have a bit of confidence.’’