PIRATES captain Gary Havelock blasted referee Chris Gay for "costing me money" after they had comfortably beaten Belle Vue last night.

Havelock was upset that the man in the box hadn't ordered a restart of heat 13 with all four riders back after Aces' Sam Ermolenko had rolled slightly at the start before the tapes went up.

Ermolenko, off gate one, didn't actually touch the tapes, but Havelock, immediately alongside the Belle Vue rider, claimed the American's movement while under the referee's starting orders had put him off.

"It made me lose concentration and that makes me really mad," said Havelock.

"But the referee didn't order a restart, he just let the race run. I was straight onto the pits phone to complain to the referee after the race had finished and I had come third behind Tony Rickardsson and Lee Richardson.

"But he just said that he didn't stop the race because that would not have been fair on Tony and Lee, who had made great starts.

"The referee said he fined Ermolenko but that's not the point. Sam's moving affected my concentration and that's unfair.

"He should have ordered a re-run with all four riders back in because I felt I could have won that race, or at least got a 5-1 behind Tony.

"As it was, I only came third and that has cost me money. If I had got a 5-1 with Tony, and I was confident of doing that, I would have been in heat 15 as well.

"I could have ended up with four or five more points. By not getting them it has hit me hard in the pocket.

"The referee warned all the riders early on that he would fine us if anyone moved at the start. But it kept happening and that is unfair on riders like me who don't move.

"He held the tapes down too long and that just made the situation worse as the meeting went on."

Havelock's moan came after a night of near boredom at Wimborne Road when Belle Vue inexplicably arrived without their spearhead Jason Crump and Brian Karger.

It is believed the Aces had trouble getting a side together after this fixture was brought forward a week so that Poole's home clash with Oxford could be shown live on Sky in seven day's time.

Crump and Karger weren't at Wimborne Road, but Coventry's Lee Richardson - guesting for Crump - was.

And, after getting up from an ugly second bend fall in heat four relatively unscathed, the former Poole rider led Belle Vue admirably.

It was, however, no contest, especially as Pirates weighed in with five heat wins from the opening six races to storm into a 28-14 lead.

On a night when referee Gay did seem to dilly-dally too long in respect of holding down the tapes, many in the 3,000 crowd became visibly restless and could have been forgiven for asking for a wake-up call when the meeting had actually finished.

The riders did their best to liven proceedings up - and Rickardsson rattled in a particularly fast time of 58.2 seconds in winning heat four, the second fastest ever on the post-1995 Poole track.

Grzegorz Walasek, winning heat three in 59.2 secs, and Hans Andersen, scorching to a race five triumph in 59.45 secs, both recorded their fastest times at Wimborne Road.

But apart from that there was very little illuminating track action as it was clear early on that a woefully weak Belle Vue were never going to fully test Poole Meridian Lifts' 100 per cent home winning record in the league this term.

Former Pirate Sam Ermolenko, the 1993 World champion, provided the race of the night.

He outgated Rickardsson in heat 11 and then rolled back the years by pegging back the Swede's every move to try and get past.

It was Rickardsson's only defeat, however, and he led Pirates to an easy success that consolidated fourth place in the Elite Lea-gue table and kept up their push for a title play-off place.

Pirates: 1 Gary Havelock (2*--3-3-1) 9+1, 2 Bjarne Pedersen (3-1-1-2*) 7+1, 3 Hans Andersen (2*-3-1*-2-2*) 10+3, 4 Grzegorz Walasek (3-0-2-1) 6, 5 Tony Rickard-sson (3-3-2-3-3) 14, 6 (guest) Adam Shields (3-0-0-0) 3, 7 Mariusz Staszewski (1-1-fell-1*) 3+1. Team manager: Neil Middleditch.

Belle Vue: 1 Sam Ermolenko (1-0-2-3-0-3-1) 10, 2 Kaj Laukkanen (ret-1*-3-0-1-2*) 7+2, 3 Jason Lyons (1-2-2*-0-3) 8+1, 4 Rider replacement for Brian Karger, 5 (guest) Lee Richardson (2-2-3-1-2-0) 10, 6 Blair Scott (0-0-0) 0, 7 Tomasz Jedrzejak (2-0-1*) 3+1. Team manager: John Hall.

Referee: Chris Gay.

HEAT DETAILS

Ht 1: Pedersen, Havelock, Ermolenko, Laukkanen, 60.2 (5-1).

Ht 2: Shields, Jedrzejak, Staszewski, Scott, 59.9 (9-3).

Ht 3: Walasek, Andersen, Lyons, Ermolenko, 59.2 (14-4).

Ht 4: Rickardsson, Richardson, Staszewski, Jedrzejak, 58.2 (18-6).

Ht 5: Andersen, Ermolenko, Laukkanen, Walasek, 59.45 (21-9).

Ht 6: Havelock, Richardson, Pedersen, Scott, 59.9 (25-11).

Ht 7: Rickardsson, Lyons, Jedrzejak, Shields, 58.5 (28-14).

Ht 8: Laukkanen, Lyons, Pedersen, Staszewski (fell), 59.2 (29-19).

Ht 9: Richardson, Walasek, Andersen, Laukkanen, 58.9 (32-22).

Ht 10: Havelock, Pedersen, Richardson, Lyons (tapes, start 15 metres back), 59.7 (37-23).

Ht 11: Ermolenko, Rickardsson, Laukkanen, Shields, 59.0 (39-27).

Ht 12: Lyons, Andersen, Staszewski, Scott, 60.3 (42-30).

Ht 13: Rickardsson, Richardson, Havelock, Ermolenko, 58.4 (46-32).

Ht 14: Ermolenko, Laukkanen, Walasek, Shields, 60.1 (47-37).

Ht 15: Rickardsson, Andersen, Ermolenko, Richardson, 59.6 (52-38).

Last night's other Elite League results: Peterborough 59 (R Sullivan 15) Ipswich 31 (J Screen 10), King's Lynn v Wolves (postponed, waterlogged track).