TROY Batchelor would love to begin easing the pain of the Swindon Robins’ bitter Elite League play-off exit by maintaining his place amongst speedway’s finest tonight.

The 27-year-old Robins captain is in Torun, Poland tonight (6pm start UK time) for the final Speedway Grand Prix of the season, with Batchelor looking to pull off a last-gasp charge into the top eight of the World Championship standings to secure a spot in the 2015 series.

The Australian is currently 11th in the table on 85 points and there are just two points separating the next four riders in the GP standings, with Polish rider Jaroslaw Hampel in seventh.

“The GP is a big one for me and hopefully that can go to plan,” said Batchelor, who earned his first full GP campaign after being called up as a reserve to replace Emil Sayfutdinov back in March.

“I don’t want to come away second-best. I definitely want to be up there.

“The chances of getting a wild card if you don’t make it are slim-to-none and I just need to do it myself, off my own back, and then I can prepare for the next one.

“It’ll be a full stadium, awesome track, awesome place.

“It’s a pretty fair track so there’s going to be some great racing and they’ve got a little roof over it to keep that weather away. Hopefully, it should be a good one.”

Reflecting on Swindon’s jarring play-off semi-final defeat to the Coventry Bees, Batchelor was frustrated that his team couldn’t produce when the chips were down as they were comprehensively beaten over two legs.

“Over the two legs, they got the job done and that’s just the way it goes. We win and lose as a team and we lost as a team,” said the Robins skipper.

“We gave 110 and the track conditions were really tough. It was really tough to race. There wasn’t much passing and if you got stuck behind, you’re eating a face-full of mud non-stop.

“We just couldn’t get it done over the two legs and what do you do? There’s no excuse and that’s just how it goes.

“It kind of feels like a waste of time trying all season to get these two meetings, then to get knocked out and your season’s done.

“It’s still been a pretty good year. It’s a good bunch of guys here and we had a few laughs along the way.

“There were definitely some good races around the Abbey this year and it’s just a shame we couldn’t get a medal for the fans.”