Leaderboard

What a fantastic finale 🏆

The only way to punish the mercenaries is to hit them in the pocket. these meetings used to be a big deal especially for the fans who would go and support their number one. Great to see Josh win as it clearly means a lot to him to represent Edinburgh.

maybe both

Sure MPT “knee injury” will be fine for the next play off match. should start giving 28 day bans for not attending these meetings or pulling stunts mid meeting like this.

Sick of riders taking the pee, no consideration for fans as usual

Should be ban or automatic 14 day ban rule for these riders who pull out.

Perhaps Mcgregor doesn’t like Edward’s and wanted kemp in semi final

Excellent meeting I thought watching the stream and congratulations to Josh Pickering, fully deserved winner, the sort of rider people want to watch.

It's a one off meeting, and the winner should be the top scorer over 20 heats. It's not a GP ffs...

What was Scott’s excuse? hangover from partying with Zmarzlik? Doubt he’ll be missing tomorrow night for tv duties

IMO I don't think anyone who has withdrawn was in the bracket of possible winner and I think they knew hence why they pulled out. Ben Cook now been in the line up adds to the possible winners along side Wright, Masters, Pickering, Lawson and Harris etc As for Boughen replacing Batchelor I know who I would rather see a young kid giving 100% over a guy that will just retire from heat if last by lap 2

Interviews at all tracks are usually inaudible. Never understand why they bother with them because of this.

So apart from Emil and laguta who would you have in the series? The rest of the gp field are mainly made up of riders from the top league in Poland which would suggest the best riders in the world. He can only beat what is infront of him and he’s the most consistent of them all by a mile. Totally deserves his titles imo. On a side note well done Robert Lambert on his first gp win hopefully he’ll have many more to come.

Cumulative race points... simples, everybody knows what's going on at all times. I know what you're going to say the winning GP rider may not get the most points, that never really bothered me in the grand scheme of things. But for those that it does just award 21 race points for winning a GP and race points for everybody else. Bottom line is it MUST be understandable to the general viewing public

Very disappointing to see riders pulling out for what seems no real reason, not so long ago this was a big meeting at this level. More evidence that riders want it all their own way and will only ride when they want to.

Should be mandatory these events they used to be the pinnacle years ago. Riders used to be full of pride riding in it. Now it’s just a joke.

I've watched speedway for 58 years; I've watched great riders and riders who were not so good. I've seen them come and I've seen them go. But I've never seen a talent like I saw on Thursday night in the Cubs v Colts match at Owlerton. William Cairns is 15 - he must be still at school. But on a track he'd probably never seen before he scored 18 points and was pretty much untouchable. The lad has a prodigious talent and it is without question he will race at GP level before his contemporaries have got their boots on. I will watch his progress with great interest. Mark my words: he is a champion in the making.

The support class is for the newer kids to the group the age and ability in that cc class is wide and varied so having new riders or slower riders in there own groups helps them develop gives them all the chance to progress

Thought that was a pretty decent meeting. Well done to Josh as he showed what it takes to get the win . Comets fans should be proud of your man’s performance. Drew kemp kept us in it till the semi so happy with that. On the call offs think Greg Blair put it perfectly when he said if they don’t want to ride let rriders who do. All in all a good well run meeting . Roll on next season

He’s rumoured to not be that big. Hes Manc afterall.

Bit embarrassing in here. If I was none the wiser I would think this thread is full of bickering 12 year old kids.

You’re either thick or didn’t see the crash.

If there were no team managers, who would fulfil the four duties that you 'literally' feel is all they do? If you have ever been involved in any sport at any level then you will know how much management goes on behind the scenes to keep the wheels turning logistically, not including any of what happens on a match day.

How pathetic

“ Verbal agreements not worth the paper they’re written on” That’s a new one on me. 😂

Translation.... Pay up ,sit down ,shut up!

Zmarzlik is the greatest rider this sport has had for the last 5 years and without injury will go on to be the greatest ever, it has never been so open to win a GP as it is today as proven by the different winners this year, with zmarzlik the tittle would be wide open but he has stepped up and his level of consistency is way above anyone else and he does it in an age where GP bike scrutiny is so strict and you can’t say that about the mauger/olsen days

Fake wrist injury they have said so he don’t get a ban. Unless he’s hurt himself w*nking

Bartosz rides well within himself these days compared to when he first came on the scene.He is one of the greats IMO.You can only beat what’s in front of you and I wouldn’t say the sport is any easier now,in fact I would say it is harder to stay ahead of the game given all the Countries and Meetings the Top riders contest.

It’s sad when the meeting at Scunny on Friday was miles better.GP for Scunny I say.😂

Zmarzlik gets 4 GM engines a year free for being world champion from GM, he gets huge sponsorship from the door company, Astorin watches and god knows who much he gets from orlen oil as well as his many other sponsors, I think that alone gets him £250,000 before you even get to his polish league money which is well over a million, I don’t think it money that motivates him, he has a desire to win no matter what the meeting, something I alluded to last weekend about timed practice is have you noticed how zmarzlik is never the fastest so eliminating the decision of picking the wrong gates, also last night he and his crew were in deep discussion before his last race, was it to tell him to get second behind bewley so he didn’t meet lambert in the semi final as he knew lambert would be doing his best to eliminate him ? Maybe it wasn’t ? Maybe it was to sit wherever he was after the gate as he already through,These things may seem tiny insignificant details to us mortals but when the difference between winning and losing is so tiny they can be everything, remember last year when he would step infront of everyone else at the gate pick ? It’s pure psychology

I thought the best system was every race counted, so effectively riders could score 21 per GP if they won all 7 races, the fact that some riders could end up with more points than the winner didn’t bother me one jot. Riders also knew that retiring for whatever reason cost them points and would always generally try to race rather than just give up. I don’t have a problem with the top 6 qualifying for the following seasons GP but the GP Challenge should provide at least 6 qualifiers with just 3 picks for the FIM., this rewards riders who do the qualifiers. Too many riders rely on the FIM picks for places and don’t bother to do the GP Qualifiers and just take a chance, if they decline to pre qualify and don’t make the top 6 or 8 then they shouldn’t get a FIM pick.

Cooper Rushen is another to watch.

Absolutely. It happens every year now riders pulling out for no real reason. Time the governing body tightened up on this. This was always a big prestigous meeting with a new bike for the winner. Alot of riders appear to care little for fans or promotions these days and are playing a big part in the fragile financial viablility of British Speedway with less than healthy crowd levels at most tracks.

The thing is, it's this kind of attitude from riders that make promoters reluctant to put anything other than (contrived) team matches on. Belle Vue have proven that if you pay the right money to riders (which is what I suspect the sudden outbreak of this new virus within the speedway rider community is all about) that they can be run successfully with the PCMT now being the biggest meeting in the UK on the domestic calendar.

It's not all about winning GP's though as Bartosz has proven, it's about beating the riders around you, with the inclusion of the likes of Huckenbeck, Kvech & the exclusion of Laguta and Sayfutdinov it's easier to pick up points, so when you currently scrape into the semis on 7, 8 or 9 points and then go on to make the final with the higher quality rider you don't make those semis let alone finals. As I keep on saying BZ is clearly the best rider of his generation but he certainly ain't the GoAT that some like to think.

What took you so long?

Remember the Wimbledon finals years ago, never a rider pulled out, just a joke now. Geordie Gavin Parr says you will be mad to not go?But he’s not paying £32 pounds+programme for me and kids to get in!! It’s a no from me!

The only way the current scoring system works is if you have all 16 riders in one 95 lap race, which could be interesting with pitstops etc, or you go back to the A, B, C & D Finals. It can never work with the 2 semis and a final system as has been proven by the utter chaos every year since it's inception where the only 2 people on the planet who knows what's going on are @racers and royalsand @Fromafar's 4 year old child genius grandson ... and we'll have to go through all this again in a couple of weeks to decide the final medal positions and the top 6 qualifiers for next year.

Perhaps of any rider pulls out of the riders championship, they should be banned from racing in the play-offs? That would stop this sort of thing happening, providing it was raced before the play-offs started.

But in those days everyone got a chance of getting to the world final not the 'select few'

Delighted that Robert got his first SGP win. Looks like he can get silver in the overall standings… hope so

Far too easy to get doctors notes these days,28 day bans would soon stop it

Probably same outcome. Probably more bellyaching about the result.

Speak to the riders they seem happy with it.

You looking in the mirror again?!🤣

He cheats as lives in long Eaton 😁 but saying that travels to all Poole home meetings, so every meeting is an away one. Top marks lbw top fan

Ashton Boughen could be a darkhorse to win it.

Well done Robert, the first of many I hope. As for Zmarslik , he is one of the all time greats. It’s not his fault about the opposition. He has been consistently the best rider in the MODERN era of Gp’s. And probably will break the all time record as it stands.

Commentators seem to be implying that Zmarzlik has surpassed Gollob. What nonsense. Gollob rode vs Rickardsson, Crump and Pedersen. Zmarzlik rides vs a bunch of bums. Zmarzlik has the benefit of not riding vs Artem Laguta.