Leaderboard

Great news that local boy Danny Smith has signed a contract following on from the signing of Archie Freeman in December, They follow in the steps of the signing of Josh Embleton who signed a couple of years ago, and who has ridden ay National League level for a couple of NL teams with success. All three riders started riding a speedway bike for the first time at my free Training School held on a Sunday afternoons started in 2008. My reason for starting the school then was to bring on as many local youngsters in order to provide a stream of youngsters to stock the Newcastle teams. Thanks goes to all the helpers who helped me run the school, and though our combined efforts, we see in the signing of Josh, Archie and Danny the success of a venture which each club should have for the future of both clubs and the UK. In addition it would be wrong to omit 14year old Owen Booth, who had his first rides at my training school, is currently riding 125cc, and is showing great form in the BYC and looking to follow his fellow Diamond contracted riders.

Yip even turning me hearing aid up to full monty I could never hear anything & the old Deadwood must have been great poker players as they could keep the cards well close to the chest not to mention the secret hand shake brown envelope club.. Roll on the granty years

I’ve said this a while back, but what a refreshing change in the world of British speedway Rob Grant is. It’s never going to be a world beating league winning team, but ran to a budget to remain financially viable and complete open and honest communications to the fans.... the paying customers keeping them informed. Some of the silence from other teams is deafening and shows a complete disregard to their paying customers. Fair play to Newcastle.

Various options exist to cope with the sun getting in one's eyes on a speedway track; tinted goggles and / or angling one's head with helmet peak are but a couple. The sun shon over the 1st bend at the Boulevard (from time to time) and Kelly Moran's stated method was "as you go over the start / finish line and you can't see a thing because of the sun I just count 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi - then I turn left". Sure seemed to work for him ....

Danny Smith has signed as a Newcastle asset (copied and pasted from Facebook): Welcome Danny Smith! Hot on the heels of the signing of 16-year-old Archie Freeman on a full club contract comes another addition to the side's ever-growing youth portfolio by signing another recently-turned 16-year-old locally-born rider in Danny Smith! Like Freeman, Smith has been shifting the Brough Park shale during junior and second-half events for a good number of seasons, often battling well with Freeman as they both have developed a high degree of speedway skill side-by-side. Diamonds' team manager, Darren Hartley is full of enthusiasm for the signing, saying: "Danny was always on the cards to be signed into our set up once he turned 16, and he perfectly fits the bill of exceptional young talent, home grown in the North East, and as such is another local lad desperately keen to improve and go all the way to the top with the Gems and the Diamonds!" Dave Tattum, the club's co=promoter went on to add: "We're really pushing the club's youth development policy this season, like never before, and now with Danny fully signed and, on our books, the future is looking very rosy indeed." "Newcastle Gem's manager, Steve Pate was also thrilled at the signing, adding: "Both Archie, and now Danny, have been honing their skills on the 500cc engines over the last couple of seasons, and last year Danny too took part in pretty much the only full-scale 2020 competition to take place on UK tracks, the British Youth Championships, gaining vital experience with every round and will join Archie at first in the ranks of the Newcastle Gems NDL side, gaining more, and more experience with the aim of joining the full-time Diamonds in the Championship at some point in the future. We are really getting a bubbling youth scene going at Newcastle right now, and just at the right time for the lads and the club!"

It’s a great pity but I don’t blame him in the slightest.

Good to see the signing of Danny Smith for the NL team. A good step forward for the new promoters when Dent Oliver started the Colts off in 1968 , it was the start of finding and providing lots of British talent for , eventually, the Aces and the beginning of a very successful time for Belle Vue We had 7 Aces, 7 Colts and other second halfers as well Keep up the good work

Squads: Team Fjelsted (A) Peter Kildemand (B) Frederik Jakobsen (B) Andrej Karpov (B) Josh Grajczonek (B) Kyle Howarth (C) Marcus Birkemose (C) Jason Jørgensen (C) Ulrich Østergaard (D) Benjamin Basso (D) Rasmus Pedersen (D) Andreas Kaag Jensen (D) Stian Vithen (D) Rune Thorst Lagl. Thomas Søfeldt —— Slangerup Speedway Klub (A) Matej Zagar (A) Mikkel Michelsen (A) Michael Jepsen Jensen (B) Rohan Tungate (B) Andreas Lyager (B) Dawid Lampart (C) Daniel Henderson (C) Jonas Seifert-Salk (D) Jacob Bukhave (D) Emil Pørtner (D) Silas Hoegh (D) William Drejer Lagl. Kenni Trasborg/Anders Graversen —— Esbjerg Vikings (A) Niels-Kristian Iversen (B) Bjarne Pedersen (B) Jake Allen (B) Kevin Wölbert (C) Kasper Andersen (C) Jye Etheridge (D) Matias Nielsen (D) Emil Breum (D) Esben Hjerrild Lagl. Tom P Madsen —— Region Varde Speedway (Outrup) (A) Piotr Protasiewicz (B) Mathias Thörnblom (B) Tomasz Gapinski (B) Nick Morris (B) Aleksandr Loktajew (C) Lasse Bjerre (C) Keynan Rew (C) Philip Hellström Bängs (D) Tim Sørensen (D) Michael Thyme Lagl. Brian Møller Skydt —— Holsted Tigers (A) Nicki Pedersen (B) Rasmus Jensen (B) Rene Bach (B) Vadim Tarasenko (C) Sam Jensen (C) Kenneth Kruse Hansen (C) Justin Sedgmen (D) Mark Bayer (D) Frederik Kristiansen Lagl. Lars Munkedal —— Grindsted SK (A) Kenneth Bjerre (B) Nikolaj Busk Jakobsen (B) David Bellego (B) Adam Ellis (B) Oskar Fajfer (C) Patrick Hansen (C) Tobias Busch (C) Matic Ivacic (D) Nick Agertoft (D) Kevin Juhl Pedersen Lagl. —— Sønderjylland Elite Speedway (Vojens) (A) Anders Thomsen (B) Hans Andersen (B) Nicolai Klindt (B) Kai Huckenbeck (C) Mads Hansen (C) Norick Blödorn (D) Jonas Knudsen (D) Jesper Knudsen Lagl. Ib Pedersen/Claus Ørts —— Nordjysk Elite Speedway (Brovst) (A) Timo Lahti (A) Grzegorz Zengota (B) Daniel Kaczmarek (B) Jonas Brøndum Andersen (B) Thomas Jørgensen (B) Claus Vissing (C) Mikkel Brøndum Andersen (C) Michele Paco Castagna (D) Lasse Pørtner (D) Tobias V. Thomsen Lagl. Thomas Ramskov

Problem is, and I think this applies at Leicester, local authority-imposed regulations for noise suppression can dictate how open the pits are, and their location and this probably applies especiallly to new stadia or when existing ones want to re-configure?

Classification: 1. Igor Kononov (14,15,12,12) 53 2. Dmitry Khomitsevich (15,11,12,13) 51 3. Dinar Valeev (10,12,12,14) 48 4. Nikita Bodganov (12,5,13,14) 44 5. Dmitry Solyannikov (10,11,9,10) 40 6. Daniil Ivanov (7,10,11,10) 38 7. Igor Saidullin (10,10,9,3) 32 8. Ivan Chichkov (7,9,8,7) 31 9. Ivan Khuzhin (9,3,5,7) 24 10. Konstantin Kolenkin (6,7,5,4) 22 11. Nikita Tarasov (10,2,6,0) 18 12. Nikita Toloknov (2,5,2,8) 17 13. Dmitry Borodin (4,8,4,1) 17 14. Eduard Krysov (2,4,4,6) 16 15. Evgeniy Saidullin (0,3,3,5) 11 16. Vladimir Fadeev (2,3,2,1) 8 17. German Khanmurzin (0,1,2,4) 7 18. Kirill Zevakov (0) 0

How much will a pint be next year?

I`m sure you are correct- at Smallmead there was an occasional problem out of the 2nd bend with the setting sun- The one stadium that stands out for me was Kings Lynn- always a hold up as the sun was into the 1st bend.

School nurse used to do 300 BCG jabs in one afternoon session, so all we need is NHS to get their fingers out. Doctors- does anyone remember them, seem to be in hiding since March???

Whilst never being someone stuck in the past, I am sure there is some mileage in some of the 'model' that they had then being transposed over to today.. The pot that all riders share is not as big as it was pro rata in the 70's yet there appears to be many, many more full time professionals than there used to be.. Even when "all was good", and riders could earn some very good money, it was mainly the heat leaders (in the top division only), who were "fully pro" and the rest did it as "well paid sideline" to their usual job, and could make a months salary from their 'proper job' on a good night... The ultimare irony is by the very way the Promoters have run the sport over the past two decades or so, they have all but devalued their own competitions to pretty much zero kudos status yet, I presume, expect riders to turn up with top 'expensive kit' to compete for these 'prizes' which can only result in higher salary expectations for the riders to meet their costs.. A strange operating model to follow..

Spot on that.. And did you also know that those cooling towers you see with steam coming out of them are used for fracking, and the steam you see is from the molten lava that becomes exposed from the earth's core when they go down too far.. They do the fracking in these towers so that they cannot be seen and no one can therefore protest about it.. They also do a different area every day but you never notice because they move the towers and every single building for a mile radius around them by exactly the same amount.. They do this each night when we are all asleep...