mmg.com.au

This was one event you couldn’t go at alone. Mansfield’s Max Fricke and his competition partner Jack Holder took out the Undera Park Speedway Best Solo Pairs on Saturday night.

The Fricke-Holder duo finished the heats on the same number of points as Taylor Poole and Brady Kurtz and Fricke beat Poole in a run-off for first place.

Fricke is the reigning Australian under-21 Solo Speedway champion, but Undera’s secretary and track co-ordinator Alan Jones said Fricke was made to earn the top finish in the run-off.

‘‘He had to do his work, they’re both very competitive riders and if one of them had made just one little mistake, that could’ve been a reversal in the decision,’’ Jones said.

It was a night of drama for some of the competitors.

World Speedway champion Chris Holder, who is Jack Holder’s brother, was forced to ride solo for most of the night after his partner, Shepparton’s Jackson Milne, crashed in his first heat.

Jones said because Milne had suffered a broken leg in the past there was concern for the old injury and he did not race again on the night.

Holder won the re-run of the heat and was repartnered with emergency rider Brad Tillet, but Tillet did not race the final heat.

Holder managed maximum points for the event, but it was not enough to put him in the top two without a partner’s score to combine with.

Jones said Holder was an outstanding talent and thrilling to watch.

‘‘Chris ... virtually did it by himself,’’ Jones said.

‘‘He come out and had a re-run of that race so therefore he ran it one his own so he could only take one set of points.

‘‘In the last heat, Brad Tillet never came out so therefore he’s run the majority of it by himself, which is hard work.’’

Jones said crowd figures may have been boosted by surrounding events like the Southern 80 in Echuca-Moama, and estimated the crowd to be about 500 to 800 people.

Young local riders also competed in supporting 100cc and 350cc events on the night and speedway greats Mick Holder and Leigh Adams ran a clinic for junior riders on Sunday.

Undera Park Speedway’s next event is a sidecar meeting on March 2.