Victor Palovaara spared the blushes of his boss – by winning the meeting for Glasgow with a sensational swoop on the visiting No 1.
The Swedish reserve came up trumps when he was thrown into heat eight against Peterborough today in a rain-affected match at the Peugeot Ashfield Stadium.
The 21-year-old replaced fellow reserve Adam Roynon in a tough-looking encounter with the Panthers’ top man Ulrich Ostergaard.
But despite ending up third after leaving the tapes, Palovaara went past team-mate James Sarjeant and then hunted Ostergaard down, racing past him on the home straight entering the last lap.
He held on for the win to take the Tigers two ahead – and that was enough to win them the meeting as the racing was abandoned after heat 10.
The result of 31-29 stands and gives Glasgow another three Premier League points in their pursuit of the play-offs, with Peterborough gaining one.
Team manager Stewart Dickson revealed afterwards how he’d put his faith in Palovaara over the guesting Roynon.
He said: “He won us the match. We weren’t picking up the third places today and they add up to 3-3s where they should be 4-2s.
“Victor had a difficult start to the day and I told him before heat eight, when I made the change, that I’d put my neck on the line for him – because Adam Roynon was far from pleased to get taken out of heat eight, which he thought was his easiest programmed ride.
“I said to Victor, you need to go out and do the business, and prove that it was the right call. I think everyone was firing him up before he left the pits and it worked for him.
“We know what he can do, but he needs to believe himself a little bit more.”
A grinning Palovaara said: “In the first two heats, I think I stayed too much on the white line. After two or three laps in my second heat, I tried to move out a bit, and I felt I had the speed. So in my third one I went for the outside and it worked.
“Ostergaard was going wide and then he turned hard out of the corner to get straight, and I just turned a little bit earlier and had my wheels in line before him. I had more speed going down the straight so that’s how I made the pass.
“I changed the ignition a little bit before that race, because the track was more slick this time. The track here is a bit heavy so I use a strong bike sometimes but today it was a little bit more slick, because of the rain, so when we changed the bike it made it a lot easier.
“It’s not good for the fans when we have to call off a meeting like this, but it’s not safe to ride when you can only go on the fence and if you try to go inside, you can slip off, so it’s hard.”
Peterborough made the meeting theirs in the early stages, taking a 4-2 and then a 5-1 to go six ahead of the in-form hosts.
Dickson hit back in heat three, however, by putting Richard Lawson in to partner Aaron Summers in the rider replacement ride – and they pulled off their trademark 5-1 to reduce it back to two points.
The Tigers got a 4-2 to level things through Summers and James Sarjeant in heat five before Palovaara’s heroics in heat eight took them two in front, and the final two races ended in 3-3s to give Glasgow the win.
Tigers scorers: Aaron Summers 9, Richard Lawson 8+1, Nick Morris 7, Victor Palovaara 4+1, James Sarjeant 2, Adam Roynon (guest) 1, David Howe R/R.