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I love the fact Craig as stuck 2 fingers up at you and the rest. Go Craig. That's the best meeting I've seen at sheffield for a few years. It was very good.

Got to laugh at your average British Speedway fan. Cook shouldn't have been allowed to ride in the meeting because having a worse rider in it would have somehow made it a better event apparently?! As phil the ace suggested, that's the best big meeting seen at Sheffield for a good few years and Cook played a major part in that. Cracking evenings entertainment.

There seemed to be a hell of a sling shot effect coming out of turn 2 on the outside! Numerous death defying overtakes at that point of the track. As others have said, that was a superb, and hugely entertaining meeting. Well done Craig Cook and great to see him jumping the fence and acknowledging the travelling Glasgow fans.

Perhaps like many before him he hasn't got the budget that is really required. Jason Lyons struggled when he qualified and he later said the only thing he learned was that there was better ways to spend his money. He spent nights at GPs sleeping in the back of his van while the likes of Tony Rickardsson and Nikki Pederson had motor homes that wouldn't have looked out of place in a F1 paddock. Cookie will come out of the GP financially poorer but a better rider from the experience.

He probably would have if he'd known

First thing i thought on entering the stadium was the track looks in great shape. As you say its no wonder the racing was very good. If all tracks provided good track conditions the riders would produce, then promoters might see an increase on the terraces. Last night underlined how entertaining this sport can be given the right conditions.

Well done to Cookie...great to see him enjoying his racing again. Still a legend (even when wearing red & white). And congrats to Erik Riss on making the final. Great entertainment! I don't get the argument that GP riders shouldn't be in the Championship - I'm happy to see the best riders possible in the league that I watch my speedway. Craig is good enough to compete at SGP level, he just needs to believe in himself a bit more. I hope he does himself justice in a GP before the season is out.

Like it or not Cook is the Champ, simple as that.

Not as good as he thinks he is? On the contrary, I’d suggest that one of Cook’s main issues is his self belief and confidence. I’d also add that while doubling up exists any British rider should be entitled to do it if they wish. Cook is riding for Glasgow because he wasn’t able to get a regular ride in Poland so it was mutually beneficial for them to offer him a team place.

Because he’s not against Tero Aarnio, Kevin Doolan and Nico Covatti in the GP’s.

Good racing, good meeting, deserved winner. Well done Cookie!

I believe the championship has got far too strong. Reserves should both be British from the national league and the current top two riders in our case Danny and Rory should Be plying their trade in the top league only. The natural jump from national league to championship is too large as it stands. There are a lot of talented young British rider out there who should be getting track time in the championship without coming against the likes of Cook Morris Schlein etc at this stage of their careers

I may be stating the bleedin' obvious here, but I would suggest that these end-of-season Lakeside fixtures at Rye House are of crucial importance to the future of speedway in this part of the country. Rye House fans are pissed off because they have lost their team, Lakeside fans likewise because they have lost their track. However, if enough people come through the gate for these meetings, it might just mean that the Hammers name (and promotion) lives on, and competitive speedway continues at Hoddesdon in 2019. It's now up to us fans, effectively. If as an old Rockets fan you don't want to support a different team at your track, you have the right to choose not to go. Hammers fans who either are unable to make it to Hoddesdon, or prefer not to, can also make that choice. So, you might say that in this instance the power lies with the fans. We can make this work - if we want it to. We just need to turn up.

Isn't it amazing how folk can decry riders who put their life on the line for our entertainment? Yes there are riders we wonder why they are in the team or even allowed on the track but they do it because like real fans they love the sport. Yes I questioned Cookie's involvement in the meeting but at the end of the day he beat the other 15 riders and that's what it's all about. If you want to slate riders then maybe you should find another sport

You want riders who want to win for their fans as well as themselves in this sort of meeting .........

and that's what we want entertainment

So what would you have said if Sheffield had been successful in their bid to bring Woofy in? As for Glasgow throwing their cash, why not if they have it? The Glasgow promotion are doing what they think is right to attract crowd and increase attendance thus ensuring the future of the sport in Glasgow. They've modernised the stadium and when you consider a few years back a young Danish rider turned his back on riding for Glasgow after seeing the rundown condition of another so called stadium that should be taken as a positive. Incidentally there are other promotions splashing the cash too if you look but you'd have to take your blinkers off to see that!

Congratulations to Richard Lawson, having a cracking season in this League.

Got to be honest, really disappointed that cook won today, he should never have been allowed back into this league never mind this meeting. I'm Craig cook I'm a gran prix rider, I won't be competing in the championship next season was his message at The end of last year. No Craig your not a gran prix rider, in fact your not even riding to a standard of number 1 for bell vue. Why should you drop back down at your Willy nilly just because Glasgow are throwing the bucks about??

I keep getting a mental picture of him when he takes off, mental.

Think it’s called trolling mate, ignore.

Damn right -- and the "Workington Tigers" were just as crippling financially to the Beatons in 1987, as were the "Barrow Bandits" to the Taylor/Fairbairn axis in 1981. Neither reached the end of their respective season. It just doesn't work. However, if the former Lakeside promotion are going to hire the Rye House facilities to run speedway this and (more importantly) next year it can only be a good thing, provided they don't try to create a "Rye House Hammers" feel for their new show. They'll soon find the the thirty miles from old to new homes are a long, long road.

The track is the most important thing to make a good meeting,far too many excuses are make when track prep is poor at a number of tracks.Its no co-incidence that natural watering by God always produces a good track.

And Chris Harris i assume doubly delighted that he won the same silver medal and made the effort to honour a Speedway commitment on Friday evening.

With meaningless meetings & Worralls slow engines I'm expecting a Wolves win. . . Unless they were all grasping excuses by the cheats fans of course. Can any Poole fan just clear up whether this meeting is meaningless, testing engines, different track man, hole in the track, wet/dry weather, high tide, tired riders....to avoid any excuses before this match happens. Don't expect any answers.

As I mentioned briefly in the Wroclaw v Torun, Sunday August 19th. topic, I made a visit to Lodz to see their new speedway stadium whilst I was staying in Wroclaw last month. The match I attended was Lodz v Pila on Friday 17th August. The new stadium is indeed very impressive, and I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. Everything, however, isn’t up and running yet. There was no ticket office or club shop in operation, with ticket sales from a van on the roadside and merchandising from a couple of tables outside the stadium. Admission tickets were 25 zloty (£5.26) and programmes (£1.05). The electronic turnstiles were not in use and entrance was through the exit gates with someone checking and clipping tickets. Not all the toilet blocks were open with those in use being ‘unisex’. The floodlights were not yet commissioned, so hence the unusually early weekday start time of 5:15p.m. The area between the old and new stadiums is still very much like a building site and, for those that know the Belle Vue area; the old and new Lodz stadiums are much much closer than the NSS is to the Greyhound Stadium. Before the match I had an interesting 15 minutes or so talk with Hans Andersen. He wasn’t selected to ride in the Lodz team that day, but was about to do some ‘meet and greet’ with the fans at the merchandise stand. He mentioned that he very much liked racing at the NSS, but hadn’t been able to put four or five consistent rides together. ‘I can win some, but also run lasts’ he said – as if to predict exactly what he would go on to do three days later when he had two wins and a last amongst his rides in the Aces v Leicester match!! Thankfully, the refreshments stands were all open – it was a very hot and sunny day and touching 30 Celsius – and, as I was in the queue, one of the Lodz supporters struck up a conversation with me when he heard me speak and spotted my Aces cap. He was most likely in his late 40s and spoke English more than good enough to hold a conversation, insisting on buying me a beer. Later at the end, he and his friends came over to me outside. They must have spotted me buying a Lodz cap at the merchandise stand, as he presented me with a Lodz scarf and said ‘to go with your new cap’. Before waving goodbye he said they don’t often get foreign visitors – ‘they all want to go to Torun or Gorzow’ he said ‘so we are happy you’ve come to see us’. Speedway fans eh? Fantastic people. As for the match itself, there was some good racing with Lodz beating Pila 53-37. It had been pretty close through the first half of the match, and after heat 6 it was only 19-17. Pila, though, only managed one heat advantage after that, but when they had either Thomas H. Jonasson or Tomasz Gapinski out on track there was some good battles with the Lodz heat leaders. For Lodz, Aces’ Rohan Tungate scored 6+2 from 3 completed rides - he had a tapes exclusion in his other heat - and Poole’s Josh Grajczonek 4+1 from 4 outings. For Pila, Thomas H. Jonasson was in fine form scoring 15+1 from 6 rides whilst Tomasz Gapinski got 11 from 5. The track length in the new stadium is 321 metres and, at the time, Rohan Tungate held the track record at 58.84. I’m not sure, though, if it’s now been bettered as they’ve had a few meetings since as they catch up with their home matches. There was just one sub-60 second winning time in the Pila match, however, and that was 59.94 by Lodz reserve Jakub Miskowiak in the reserves race. He went onto score 11 from 5 rides. It was quite a long day as the coach had left Wroclaw at 10:15a.m. on Friday, getting back at 12:30a.m. going into Saturday morning. It was well worth it, though, and it would be nice to return one day to Lodz to see the fully finished stadium and surrounds.

Well done Cook... not a rider i like particularly but he won fair and square... have to say Erik Riss has a fantasyic style and is very quick enjoyed watching him ride..

Shock result result ,league newcomer cleans up.

My understanding is that Thurrock Council want Speedway to continue and planning permission for the site includes a speedway track . The trouble is, redevelopment of the site doesn’t look like starting for some time yet. Using Rye House would be a short term solution for the foreseeable future. Whether BMR want to get back into speedway and want the track back or whether they will want some kind of partnership with the Lakeside promotion is something that only time will tell.

Glad to see Zagar get up from what could have been a serious injury. That bike's for the bin though!

in any other stadium you wouldn't get half of that people came to see the stadium, it's THE stadium in Poland, so much history, so much drama, so much success...

Give each other racing room and that`s the result !!!!!!

If the rest of the meeting is as good as the scrap in heat 1 we are in for a classic !!

Same as you hated Drury in the past

The fixture is to be arranged on the Peterborough website. Well that clears that one up!

Well presumably someone from Lakeside informed the BSPA regarding this fixture, it wouldn’t have been generated by Peterborough. It would be helpful if Lakeside confirmed or advertised the said fixture or they could be dissapointed with the attendance.

More chips than Aunt Bessie!

okay , got it wrong , again . sorry to comet 49 then .

Only thing is Trees has the balls(sorry Trees just a saying)to apologize when she has it wrong.Something totally lacking from SS.

Excellent meeting last night. Thouroughly enjoyed it with plenty of passing. Klindt had a night to forget Rasser was superb Ben Barker an excellent choice of guest and always seemed to be trying his hardest Rene had a good night after a slow start and showed the type of determination we know he is capable of Ty does not seem as sharp as he did a month or two ago when he was guesting for everyone and banging big scores in everywhere but did OK Kyle did well again and it was good to see him getting points after a brave pass down the back straight when plenty of others would have shut off. I'm so pleased he is finally getting his rewards at this level Mason had a solid night but definitely needs faster machinery as proved by Nicolai when he borrowed his bike He was first out of the start but struggled to hold third Just a thought but if a rider like Klindt last night, blows a bike up in the pits when warming up, couldn't Hoggy announce it to the crowd? If we knew what was happening it would be less frustrating for us and we would feel more sympathetic towards the rider concerned

Crap track walk!!Purveys a 'Grandad' image of speedway in 2018. Attending Loomer Rd whoever you support will put you off speedway for life!!

Big difference, teams that have gone on to win the play offs from 4th are usually slap bang in form in September. Huge difference. With respect the Aces had turned a corner before Dan got injured and he is irreplaceable with RR and even if guests were available for 4th rider there isn’t really anyone that could score his points either. Swindon are bang out of form and Wolves are terrible away. That’s why I say the 4th play off team will be fodder.

What a heat 15 !!!!!

"Dumbing down" is certain for next year, the plan being to have ten Premiership sides at about the Current Championship level and a Much reduced Championship average, with probably three national league sides moving up.

Only in Speedway 2018 (UK) could you have fewer fixtures and yet still struggle to run them within the proposed timescale. Looking in from a distance its been a good season for Berwick all things considered. Looking healthy for 2019 as much of the team could pick itself.

but why did we have the hottest, driest summer on record with barely any fixtures taking place? they should have been rearranged earlier in the year.

My memory of Czech tourists goes back to their first ever visit, as the Red Star Prague team in 1967. On an August Saturday afternoon when the Czechoslovaks were due to meet Cradley Heath Heathens I was riding a few miles away when i came across a car and an estate both with bike-laden trailers parked on the side of the road. The number plates on the Skodas made it obvious who they were, so I stopped and went over to them. Somehow they'd got all 8 riders (one serving as mechanic) plus the team manager and a face I recognised as BSPA secretary Dave Stevens into the 2 vehicles, along with leathers, helmets and kit, etc, for all the riders, plus 8 bikes ! (Possibly statistician Bryan Seery was also in there too, -? Sorry, it was a long time ago.) Admittedly Dave was only of slight build, (Bryan Seery the opposite,) and obviously only joined them once the visitors had reached London after their 800 mile journey across Europe, but even so, traveling conditions for the 9 would have been far from comfortable: what a difference from today's riders in their luxurious Mercedes Sprinter vans! Dudley Wood Stadium had always been notoriously difficult to find, - the SS&N once did a 'True or False' story entitled 'The Track that Disappeared' : - it was true, and based on Dudley Wood! Sure enough, even with Dave Stevens as UK guide, the party was lost. So after a brief chat I had them follow me the couple of miles to the stadium , in plenty of time for the match. I kept in touch with team manager Pavel Kacer for many years afterwards, - as an organiser of the Pardubice Golden Helmet he'd send me the programme each year plus other memorabilia, and I'd reciprocate with things like spark plugs for a family Hillman Minx that they couldn't get a match for behind the Iron Curtain. Cradley Heath was again on the tour programme the following year, 1968, and meeting with Pavel at the track that evening, he said that they'd got lost getting to Dudley Wood and had to follow a chap on a motorbike that led them to the track. Because of the poor english, I thought he was relating the first visit of the previous year: "That was me, I said, last year. "No, he replied, - Today, - it happened again !"

Not a bad idea, although the London Lions flopped at Hackney in 1996. Also, I wonder if Rye House is too far from London for it to work. Obviously, it's Lakeside Hammers for this season, but beyond that using the 'Lakeside' name seems largely pointless, especially since it's not even the traditional name for Arena Essex. It's just a shopping centre that flagged to people where the Arena Essex Raceway was actually based. Maybe Rye House Hammers does make most sense. It's a link to London it itself, since it's the old West Ham name. Plus it trips nicely off the tongue.

Morning, It's a pretty empty feeling many of us have this morning, please don't let this thread descend into the usual forum bitching, life really is too short - trust me. Like you all I sincerely wish Dan a full and speedy recovery. Cancelled flights, the delayed start, and non arrival of the ambulance all conspired to undermine what promised to be a great Speedway meeting and make this a night to forget. I apologise to anybody who felt there were any shortcomings last night it was a day and night from hell for everyone connected with the club. Also, it is a policy agreed with the Medical Officer not to comment on injuries or play music/make announcements whilst somebody is being treated on the track unless asked to do so, the PA system is loud and effective and drowns out communication between the medics and injured party so I regret not being in a position to keep you completely informed. You saw us preparing for the Air Ambulance as this would have brought the emergency doctors but this was changed due to flight logistics issues never the less the Doctors from the Air Ambulance team tore across the county by car to fulfill their commitment and duty, just incredible. Jacko spent most of the morning liaising between myself, Nicolai and Rasmus once their flight had been cancelled and all options were looked at to get them to Derwent Park including a Helicopter charter. The nearest we could get them to DP was Manchester to land at 5 pm so a request was made and supported by Lakeside to delay the start by 30 minutes. Nicolai and Rasmus started their shuttle around Europe and Jacko and I put in contingencies to cover myself as announcer/presenter and both riders in the event of further delays so that it was game on whatever happened. If Jacko didn't look at the Lakeside website please do forgive him, at the end of the day the Lakeside team was Will's responsibility and would have had to have been cleared with the Referee at some point. Let's not make anyone feel too bad about that at the end of the day both clubs gained nothing from yesterday and have the opportunity to race each other again. I really would like to praise Nicolai and Rasmus they could have so easily given up and stayed in DK and I do hope they are ok after their white knuckle ride to DP in the back of the Funmobile

WHATEVER the pros and cons of Pardubice, the fact is that Prague is a huge favourite for fans with the stadium just a tram ride from the city centre.