HE MAY have helped spark Pirates' double delight over the past two seasons at Wimborne Road – but Ben Cook's trade back home in Australia was always important for him to be secure.

Having raced bikes since the age of four, the 25-year-old has always wanted to compete on track to earn a living.

But just in case he was not able to fulfil his dreams of racing across the globe, Cook put in the hard yards to qualify as an electrician as a backup from his racing.

Now he has returned down under after the heroics of another SGB Championship and Knockout Cup-winning campaign with Poole, the diminutive Aussie is going back to the day job, as well as looking to get track time in some meetings on the other side of the world.

It is a different way of life to when he is based at Neil Middleditch's Bailie House headquarters, but Cook is able to rewire himself while at home during the British off-season.

Speaking to the Daily Echo before leaving to head back to Australia, Cook, who is set to be back with Poole in 2023, told the Daily Echo: "I'm an electrician by trade, so I will be back into work and earning some money to come back and hopefully do it again.

"We have all got jobs to go back to, live in the sun and chill out for a bit before we come back and do it again.

"I work for a mate at home, so he's pretty good. I can go back and go straight to work, so it's pretty cool.

"It was good to get the trade under the belt with being an electrician.

"If speedway didn't work out I could have gone back home, I'm still an electrician and I could go back to work and at least I gave it a try.

"But everything is going okay at the minute, hopefully I can come back next year and maybe get two leagues going."

Asked how qualifying as an electrician came about, the talented Aussie said: "I have been racing since I was four years old. Everyone wants to race bikes for a living and earn money from it – how good of a job is that?!

"But it's good having a job to go back to. There's four or five months at home – you've got to earn money still and it's good to know you've still got a job and can go back to normal ways.

"You are only young when you leave school and you don't really know what you want to do, do you? So, it was good to get a trade behind myself."

Asked whether he has ever helped out with the electrics at Bailie House, Cook replied: "When something goes wrong, I get the call-up at home!

"But not too much. I am not over here to be an electrician, I am here to race bikes so I can put the tools behind and go back in the workshop and work on the bikes."

It is on the track that Cook has become a fan favourite at Pirates over the past two seasons – helped by the likes of Brady Kurtz, Chris Holder and Jack Holder in the pits alongside brother Zach.

The Cooks and the Kurtzs are from the same town of Cowra in New South Wales.

"We have raced since four years old together," said Cook, when asked about Kurtz, who captained Belle Vue to the SGB Premiership title last season.

"He came over when he was younger, lived over in Denmark and started racing speedway at a young age.

"Now we are doing it together over here. It's a pretty cool thing to all come from the same town especially with my brother as well and here we are.

"I (originally) did flat track. It's like motocross, no jumps. That's what myself, Zach, Brady and his brother Todd did – even the Holder boys had a bit of a dig in it too.

"We have all got a bike background. There wasn't too much to go from racing flat track if you wanted to earn it for a living in Aussie, so we had to kind of make the switch. It was either that or road racing. We've come to speedway and here we are."