Speedy swindon pete

There will be no one here......because there isn't a match for another 3/4 weeks.

What a crowd. Superb stuff.

Surprised they didn't try and rearrange this a couple of weeks ago with stfc certIn to be in the playoffs on the Thursday night. Bit of a shame they clash. I can't quite face having to watch the footy, so will be at speedway for a welcome distraction. Not sure if many others will be doing the same. Remember last time the playoffs and speedway clashed in 2010. The speedway was called off at about mid day after one short shower....wouldn't be surprised if it happened again today, although I can't see where any significant rain is coming from.

Hope for the sake of the paying customers there that they give it a few minutes for the shower to pass and do some track work cover up the slick wet stuff. Way ahead of schedule so no need to be hasty and call it off now.

KL rider to fall, cause a stoppage and a call to the ref to call the meeting off?? I'm too synical

Great meeting last night, some cracking racing from both sets of riders. The track has produced some pretty decent stuff in most meetings this season so far, will certainly be sad to see it go. Nick is really starting to show us what he's capable of now. We know he's got the track craft and bravery, he just hasn't always had the bike setup underneath him to utilise. He was electric last night, you could tell he was on it as soon as he got stuck behind Harris in his first heat and was hiving to coast round to not run into Bomber. If he could gate more consistently that will certainly help his scores out, not quite as fun to watch that way though. Isn't it GRW that says you don't know what a good track is unless you're a rider or track staff??? They are consistent...if nothing else.

I thought the racing was ok, some decent tight races, but the track did seem hard to make a pass on, especially compared to the other meetings at blunsdon this season so far, where there's been plenty. Don't think you can say Morris was too over eager, just was following Scott through on the inside underneath Lawson(?) and hit a sticky bit of track mid bend which caught a couple of others out early doors too. Completely surreal hearing speedway fans of all people, moaning about the music being too old! I think you underestimate the taste of alot of today's 'yoof'. They're probably having pap like Jessie J and Taylor Swift rammed down their throats every second of the day...a bit of Deep Purple is probably light relief for a while! (I do say that with tounge slightly in cheek). The point I'm making is there is variety there which is what it should be...it's not a school disco and it's not a nursing home....play a bit of everything. Atmosphere was probably on hindsight just down to being one of those classic early season meetings against a fairly non description opponent. Not much on the line yet and no great rivalry between the two teams.

You get 3 points for home win anyway...no points dropped. Rosco has already admitted he dropped the ball on that one. Odd meeting, always seemingly in the balance, decent sized crowd considering the Poole match just a few days before, not much atmosphere, reasonably close racing but not much in the way of passing.

If you look at the wider picture, you'll see that the meetings from Lynn on sky over recent seasons have been absolutely dire. This is despite lots of people claiming at certain times that conditions are perfect for racing. We've seen plenty of good racing over the years in crap conditions or with rubbish teams at different tracks when you really weren't expecting much entertainment. So what's the common denominator recently with meetings at Saddlebrow?? Judging how good a meeting is by how few riders fall off? Imagine the high-5s dished out amongst the sky production crew last night. Yeeha.

What really worries me is that promoters at tracks these days have this exact same attitude. You're right, the fans and paying public do have a choice. Quite clearly, they're not choosing to attend meetings at the moment and seeing matches like that last night isn't going to help the problem. First match of the season on sky last night, casual viewers may have noticed it was on, no interest in the england friendly and think they'll have a look to see if its worth watching. After seeing what was served up last night, will many bother looking out for further fixtures? I highly doubt it. Yes I know Lakeside were god awful. If that was the first quite crap meeting we've seen from KL recently, I'm sure people wouldn't have been so vocal about the track at all, but unfortunately its not the first time at all. It seems to be a recurring theme and the thing that irks me the most (and this is the same at all track/events), is that there always seems to be an excuse. Rain, wind, crap riders, sky schedule, stock cars. The sport cannot afford to be making excuses for its self these days, it needs to get its act together now. The track wasn't particularly dangerous/choppy/grippy/slick/wet/dry last night, we've all seen far far worse, it was just so so boring, and it has been at KL for a while now. Im sure Buster is a great track man and does wonders in adverse conditions, but theres just something in the way that that track is prepped at the moment that is really not conducive to close racing and passing there at the moment. Most seasoned speedway fans know that Saddlebrow has produced some great racing over the years, I wonder if the techniques or materials used there are just not suitable for the way the bike are these days. We've heard many times that the new, quieter silencers these days don't respond particularly well to deep or grippy tracks, maybe thats a problem that needs to be looked at from a track prep angle. Just sticking your fingers in ears and pretending everything is fine, isn't going to work. Rob Lambert was superb last night, credit to him, but…and i say this whilst reaching for my tin hat…When you see a world class rider with the experience of AJ, seemingly completely unable to mount any sort of challenge, or try any different kind of line to attempt to make up some ground or a pass, on a 16 year old kid….that does indicate to me that something is not quite right with the track conditions. This isn't a problem just with Kings Lynn, its a much wider problem with the sport in this country at the moment, KL just happen to be providing more evidence of the problem at this particular time. People seem to attend speedway meetings or watch meetings on the tele these days on the off chance that they'll see something entertaining. People's patience is clearly running thin, so the problem needs to be sorted out as soon as possible.

I've been banging on about this for a couple of years now, but the BSPA and tracks should be focusing massively on producing consistent, smooth surfaces that all riders can "have a go" on. The Bombers and Barkers of the world are a dwindling breed and bemoaning the fact that riders don't have any throttle control these days, isn't going to change anything at all. The track at Brandon is another one that seems to be rougher than a buzzard's crutch every time sky appear. I'd go as far as fining tracks that produce overly rough or tricky tracks, without a suitable excuse, for bringing the sport into disrepute. We've heard it so many times that conditions are "perfect for racing" and chapman has been working his magic on the track....only for the meeting to be total guff. That is totally unforgivable, especially at a time when paying customers seems to be at an all time low. Pearson assured us that there was in fact a decent crowd there tonight, but it certainly didn't sound like it and the pictures of the crowd looked pretty damning. Yes Lakeside were terrible, but there's a common denominator in all meetings from Saddlebrow lately. You can bleat all you like about the quality of the oppo, but that won't cut it with the paying customers and potential customers watching on Sky. I can't imagine any casual or new viewer to speedway, will have been left wanting more from that showing tonight.

Smooth and slick? Ask Kerr what he thinks about that.

If it's prepared better than anywhere in the country, why do we see, time after time such poor meetings and racing there each time sky visits? Gone are the days when "good preparation", meant lots of dirt on the track. The bikes have changed, the riders have changed and the prep has to change accordingly.

Shocking, shocking meeting. How many times have we seen a heavy surface at "one of britains best racing tracks" in recent seasons?

Why oh why would you chose to have your opening fixture on Sky for the year at Kings Lynn. We haven't seen a decent meeting on sky at KL for a long time now, but not knowing how strong the team you are going to be pitting against them is makes it even worse. It's not KLs fault that Lakeside are total crap, but they always have a strong home advantage, which can be evened up later in the season by bringing along the top/form team. Start of the season where everything's an unknown, total madness.

I think a lot of that depends on whether there is a covered/cantilevered grandstand to contain the atmosphere, on the home straight especially. I may have missed it, but i haven't seen anything in the plans or talk about it having a covered main straight? It needs something to contain the noise of the bikes and the crowd to heighten the experience. Its something i didn't notice had such an effect until i went to a couple of meetings at Somerset. Even though there was a big crowd, the general noise and atmosphere had nothing to reflect off or contain it, so it just goes straight up into the air above, resulting, i think in the atmosphere being a little more flat and muted than it should be. The abbey has just about enough of a roof over the main straight currently to contain some noise, but the best example is probably at Poole. When the grandstand has plenty of people in it making some noise (only when they're winning obviously), not only is it loud when you're in there, but it also projects the noise out onto the other parts of the stadium as well. When people get cheering in there,you can really hear it from the bends. If you took that away from Wimbourne road, the atmosphere would certainly take a nose dive all round the stadium.

No...

Has Mikkelsen been mentioned as being linked with anyone? If i was Rosco i'd be busting a nut to try and get him on his average…low 6? Nick Mikkelsen Musielak (off to wolves if you believe the talk by the looks of it)/ Howarth, another rumour. then any combination of Doyle/Batch/PK/Holder etc etc if that lot comes under the 34 limit that would be a decent team in my eyes

well done Poole. Thank god this season is over. Absolute train wreck from start to finish. One to forget for sure. Shame, as it was a decent meeting in the end, just a shame the 7 months preceding that have been absolute toilet.

Coventry reserves have got more rolls than Greggs once again. Sargeant has been doing it since swindon thrashed cov at blunsdon a few months ago. He made 4 rolled/anticipated starts consecutively and the ref only noticed one or two of them. Didn't slap down any sort of fine or exclusion to stamp it out. Ever since, both him and Garrity have been plain taking the piss. If they get it just right everyone just calls it a brilliant start...but they are so consistent at doing it, it has to be anticipating the start!! And again whilst writing! Garrity does it once again!

Ouch. Managed to get online to have a look at live updates at about heat 10 to see we were getting tonked. Took the shine off a fun day. Reading through the comments and not having seen any footage, it's sounds as if Cov were a lot sharper in pretty much every department and the swindon boys were looking rather flat. At least I don't have to worry about missing the final now. Well done coventry. Certainly plenty of steel in that side. I had a nagging doubt in my mind over how the swindon riders would ride together after a fairly decent gap between our last fixture and the play offs. I think it was the 2009 season when we were in the final against wolves. We ended the season very well, but then had a long break between the last match and the semi, and we didn't look the same team at all from a few weeks previous. I think it was coventry that we struggled past in that semi too. It sounds like something similar had happened in the last couple of weeks. I honestly think if we'd gone from that good final run of results and a week later gone straight into the playoffs, we'd have kept that momentum and gone through. But not to be. Funny reading people talking about swindon fans over confidence coming back and smacking them in the face. What were they expecting people to say?? We were the form team finishing the season, the bookies had made us favourites and the team was riding brilliantly from top to bottom. If we'd have started writing off our chances and playing as the underdogs then the same people would have been labelling us as deluded egits for not acknowledging that we were in a very handy position. You can't have it both ways. As it happens, we didn't turn up over the two legs, which makes it all the more disappointing to not be in the final. I'll probably have to wait a couple of weeks to watch and analyse the match, through parted fingers no doubt. At least Swindon Town are taking the wee wee in league one at the moment whilst Coventry in their massive stadium wallow in bottom half. So, nur! C'mon KL!

Away in the US for this and the remainder of the playoffs. Gutted to not be there tonight. Hope for everyone's sake the meeting goes ahead and its a cracker like it really should be. After this absolute train wreck of a season for the EL, I'm not too bothered whether swindon win the league or not. But it would be nice to see the coffers of the club boyed by another final appearance. At least if we do make it through with Poole, I won't have to make the horrible decision of whether to go down to poole and support the boys but living with the guilt of having to hand over my hard earned to Matt Ford.

Should've put a monkey on it. First chance I've had to comment on the meeting after the forum disappeared for a few days. 8 points was annoying to let slip but not too bad. Nicely poised for Monday. Coventry prepped the track to their liking and mostly rode it quite well, no problem with that. Largely the racing was toilet though. As soon as the rider in front had time to settle and was brave enough to ride just on the edge of the dirt line, that was it. Couple that to gate 3 being such a massive advantage most of the night, it made second strings that had done nothing all night look like world beaters as soon as they hit the front. How often is it that you see all riders in the main body of both teams get a win (apart from Hans' paid win)? seems rare to me. Don't blame our guys for not wanting to really do the wall of death, they're just not used to tracks like that by and large. I'd much rather they claimed the points rather than flying off in all directions. Save the big risks for our own patch which we've got more confidence in. Good to see that Sargeant and Greaves have put the hand bags behind them. Good on them. Shows that it might have not got quite so out of hand if it was handled better in the first place and you take the muppets in the pits out of the equation. As others have said, the screen at Brandon was either minuscule or miles away. Would have been more use watching it on my phone if I had any signal there. All set for a corker on Monday. That I won't be in the country for....bummer.

Could get "pwoppa tasty" on Monday then!

Only things im predicting at the moment is that the track will be like a ploughed field and it will be a very very long evening for those there.