Swindon Robins made the most of home advantage to win the first-ever Elite League Best Pairs competition at Blunsdon last night.

The meeting comprised two groups of five teams.

Oxford Silver Machine were drawn in Group A with Poole, Coventry, Belle Vue and Swindon.

With injured No 1 Greg Hancock still missing, Travis McGowan was drafted in to partner Sebastian Ulamek, and with every other team tracking their top two, Oxford were always going to have to do something very special to make it to the latter stages.

Ulamek made a flying start in the first Oxford heat, but was tracked by Poole's Tony Rickardsson, who managed to find a way past on the first bend of the second lap.

However, as it was a best pairs competition where the scoring goes 4-3-2-0, second and third places actually gave Oxford the heat win.

In the ninth heat, the Silver Machine were up against the home side.

McGowan held second place for a while, but Ulamek totally missed the start.

Charlie Gjedde soon reeled in McGowan, who then suffered an engine failure, and it meant that Oxford went down to a maximum 7-2 defeat and were really up against it for the rest of the competition.

Things did not look good for them in their third ride as the Coventry pair made the best of the start. However, Ulamek rode a clever line around the first turn to nip underneath the Bees pair and very nearly got ahead.

McGowan rode the bravest lap of his life to get past Billy Janniro, who subsequently withdrew with engine problems. McGowan earned much praise for a solid display.

The result really put Oxford out of contention and in their last ride they were up against the top team from their group, Belle Vue.

Ulamek got into second place, but it was too tough for McGowan, who was last, and that meant Oxford were out. They finished third in their group, ahead of Coventry and Poole.

Swindon and Belle Vue qualified from Group A, while Peterborough and Eastbourne headed Group B.

Belle Vue easily saw off Peterborough in the first semi-final with a tapes-to-flag maximum 7-2 heat win, while Leigh Adams and Gjedde saw Swindon through.

In the final, Belle Vue won the toss for gate positions and chose the inside gates, but Swindon took the honours as Gjedde and Adams packed in behind Jason Crump to ensure that the home fans went away happy.