Speedy swindon pete

Do people not listen?....rosco said either call it off...or wait for the showers to pass and carry on if its ok after that, rather than just try and rush it through with no racing at all. Some people are as bad as the ref.

That was a decent race there..... So where's everyone saying they should be getting on with it...it's fine....what's wrong with everyone?

Why are people booing Morris as if he purposely got himself all out of shape in a bid to get Barker excluded? It was the ref that made the rediculous decision. God speedway fans are thick.

How on earth are these people in charge of running meetings if they can't use any sort of common sense and logic?....let alone just being able using their eyes properly. Yet another decision where inconsistencies make this sport a complete joke. Looks a bit bumpy the track compared to the usual high standards at Birmingham, hope it sorts itself out.

What the hell are these referees smoking?

First chance I've had to say anything at length about the meeting. To start, back to the Coventry match that a few have mentioned. Much like last night there was persistent, but not pouring rain that night that would not let up. The major beef I had that night was that the track and conditions had gone past the point of being raceable at about heat 7, and the heats after that were complete non events. If they thought heats 8,9 and 10 could have been run, how could the heats after 10 not been run, in the same, supposedly raceable conditions...the meeting was still up for grabs, whether swindon looked like they would have mounted a comeback or not was irrelevant. The fans were cheated out of getting any money from a restaging, and were instead treated to 3 or 4 heats of total bilge, rushed through just to tick a box so the whole shambles didn't have to be arranged again, as well as the remaining 5 heats that weren't run. Havelock going on about it on twitter like he masterminded winning the league title, as one of our young riders was being treated for life threatening after being hitched off by one of his team, was particularly galling, Last night, for the record, at the track, I wanted to see the meeting run to heat 15, it was entertaining enough in places, and it would have been nice to have seen 15 heats of speedway that I had payed for for a change. However, even without knowing of the discussions that were going on in the pits after heats 10 or 12, I wasn't too surprised to see it brought to a halt. Standing out the rain under the main stand, to me it looked as if the rain was getting slightly heavier at heat 11, in the puddles forming on the dog track covers. As I mentioned briefly last night, watching it back on TV, the cameras made the conditions look much brighter than it actually was. I can see why people watching at home would think it wasn't as bad as some were making out. I agree that racing heat 11 was fine, but when you see heat 12 run in a time of over 72 seconds, it does indicate that something about the conditions wasn't right. Coming back and watching on the recording seeing Nicholls saying it wasn't ideal after 10 and his obvious doubts when it was called at 12 when interviewed, was probably the main insight into what most riders in the pits would have been thinking. Cook saying he wanted to continue...after 3 ducks...give me a break. Probably was happy to continue because he knew he would be replaced by wright in heat 13. So plenty of justification for the meeting to be called to a halt, by the ref/meeting steward/gormless puppet from the BSPA or Sky, yet Rosco is being portrayed (seemingly by those not there) as some sort of antichrist who has managed to singlehandedly demolish British speedway. Pick of the bunch being the stick hes getting for saying that he thought the rain was getting slightly heavier in a lighthearted conversation with Charlie. The girl employed by the broadcaster that wants to keep the action going for its viewers, disagreed. Funny that. The girl who all too often can barely string a cohesive sentence together in the form of some sort of slightly enlightening question, has suddenly become a fully fledged meteorologist according to those all to keen to partake in a bit of rosco bashing. Particularly funny that a lot of the bitter comments are coming from BV fans, whose club was involved in the single most damaging and insulting speedway match broadcast on Sky against Poole last year, as well as "water bowser-gate". Good to see Gustaffsson riding well, although he did do well against Belle Vue the other month too...so I'll be keeping my party poppers in my pocket, just for the moment for a few more matches.

Don't have time for a full review, but just flicked through the sky recording, the sky cameras certainly made visibility seem better than it actually was there in the stadium. Some decent racing, shame it was called after 12.

Good racing, dire sound. What boggles me beyond belief is that there must be someone at Eurosport or the production company, with some headphones watching and listening to what's going on, seemingly thinking it sounds fine. Do these people not have sodding ears?! Unless Eurosport is actually so tin-pot that quality control is left to the commentators. Even then they must surely have headphones on and be able to notice that Jack's voice is distorting rediculously.

Bummer, rain dance it is then.

Is there a legit source or evidence of PK missing on Saturday? Don't trust the current source, although I fear they may be correct.

If you're too thick to realise that you're in a 3 rider race and head for the pits after 3 laps...you don't deserve the point.

PK obviously feeling guilty that the paying crowd have been short changed for entertainment tonight. Stupid boy. Iversen a different kind of gravy around the NA. Got that bike hooked on rails there.

Cheerio, Simon.

This is exactly why I don't bother trying to get people into the sport. Should be an entertaining meeting, great weather, evenly matched teams.....and I'm bored to tears, despite Swindon being in the lead at the moment. Awful.

Not the first time we've seen this at Kings Lynn. Perfect day but the track is over-prepared. Far too sticky in the first 3rd of the meeting, just follow the leader. Hopefully should get better later on.

Was impressed with Hansen's commitment when he rode for cov at Swindon in that abortion of a meeting. Completely different rider to the one I remember riding in Britain a few years ago. Fair play to him, great to watch.

Typical bumpy lumpy Poole track. Riders all over the place having to ride an inch from the fence to find some dirt.

Wasn't anyone rushing to give cook or zagar their bike for a race though. Great team spirit in the aces camp then. Dull meeting generally. Track tricky and not conducive to good racing. Too much dirt mid track going into the bends and next to nothing out wide. Hold mid track and cut to the white line on the exit and you'd be sorted pretty much. Decent performance from the robins middle order.

No doubt about that. I said to my dad before heat 10, i'll be amazed if the Robins riders don't play for time here. And if the Cov riders tried it on withe the scores the other way round, you and I would probably be on here calling them sly, devious gits, amongst other things. But seeing it from a completely neutral point of view, you pay to watch a competition, you should see the rules applied consistently and fairly, so the product is transparent, everyone knows where they stand. There was no difference in visibility between heats 8, 9 or 10, if thats what the ref was saying he called it off for. So for the 2 minutes not to come on straight after the riders had cleared the track from heat 10, then clearly it was just done out of convenience. As soon as the ref says "we'll just get this heat done" knowing that the conditions are far from ideal, just because he wants to home in time for question time and cant be bothered to rearrange the meeting, its no longer a competition that the fans payed for, its just an exhibition. You don't see F1 and MotoGP going "we'll call it a day at the end of this lap, lads". It either stops there and then because its unsuitable for racing, or it carries on. Its a professional sport, not a Christmas day game of monopoly thats dragged on for 5 hours too long. To me it just summed up the way the sport is run over here at the moment, every decision in this sport is made with a shrug of the shoulders, without any thought what so ever for the people that are helping to keep the sport shambling along, the paying public. I know its not a new observation, but it just seems extraordinary to me how many years this has been going on for, yet the people who run it haven't cottoned on. Sad, but not completely unsurprising to hear about Ritchings, hope he's alright soon. It was one of those moments that the pit of your stomach falls out, as he's sat on the bike still with no control over it, just heading straight for the fence. With it being quite a preventable accident as well, makes it even worse.

Cov deserved to win the match, well done them. Whether they genuinely were good, or swindon, looking pretty abject at best, made Cov look good, remains to be seen. Not that I'm too bothered about the result. First home meeting of the season in pants weather, is always going to be a bit of a lottery. Won't look too much into the performances, except Klindt barely looked competitive. He was always going to be one of those frustrating riders to have in your team, the fact that he was a bike length or two down on even NL riders going into the first bend is a worry. Sounds like Darryl escaped relatively unscathed, considering the crash he had. It was an absolute sickener. Wrongly excluded too, not that it would have mattered much in the context of the meeting. I said before the meeting Garrity is quick, but not afraid to put it about. He drifted well wide on bend 4, Ritchings came up the inside coming off the bend and was ahead slightly, drifting to the outside of the straight. he went over far enough to block Garrity coming round the outside of him, as he's entitled to do, he didn't suddenly slam the door on him. But garrity kept the throttle open as if the track was going to magically become half a yard wider. His helmet hits the back of Darryls arm, and after that it was just a complete mess. Wreckless move from Garrity in my book. After that, the whole night had an air of inevitability about it. Massive wait after Ritchings was taken off the track. I know it was a bad one and it probably couldn't be helped, but can't some sort of contingency plan be put together to help maintain the flow of the meeting at all? The rain starts coming down, lightly. Strung out racing, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt considering the uncertain weather. Another crash and wait, rain starting to come down heavier. By heat 8 the rain was pretty steady. You could tell that the meeting was only going to be 10 meetings long at best by that point. What gets me though is this whole idea of "lets just get to heat 10 and get a result". To me it sums up the shambles that the sport is in and the half arsed manner in which its run. There's no degree of professionalism, or hard and fast rules or protocol. its just a stumbling, bumbling wreck. How can any sport that says, well we'll get to this point and then we'll go home because it'll be less of a pain in the arse than rearranging the meeting, call its self professional? Heat 9 looked a shambles, you could hardly see the back straight. We're told heat 10 will go ahead, in the same conditions, yet 3 minutes later its suddenly not suitable for racing. There was absolutely no difference in the conditions between heats 9 and 10, so why not crack on and see how many heats could be done? It should be black or white, not just whats convenient. Like i've said, i wasn't too bothered with the result, but as a paying customer, theres no consistency. Its either fit for racing, or it isn't. Its no wonder the sport is on his knees over here. Theres only so many times that you can make excuses about the weather, nasty incidents, unfortunate delays. No wonder there's barely anyone on the terraces any more. Paying your money in the hope you'll see just a smoothly run meeting (even before getting into the issue of entertaining racing), really doesn't work. I stopped trying to introduce new people to the sport years ago now, if i took someone along last night, i would have made every effort to avoid having to talk to them for the next few weeks. These days i'm too embarrassed to say what i do with my thursday evenings, if I'm asked, hoping that they'll never find out i go and watch speedway. After last year's mess, i'd have hoped that lessons would have been learnt and speedway in Britain will have generally pulled its socks up...or at least started. But after the cobbled together team rulings in the winter, race formats thrashed out on the back of a fag packet, hoping no one would notice and the shambolic "start" to the season on TV....it seems we're still in the same old sinking ship. EDIT - Scratch that about Darryl being relatively unscathed, looks like hes got a broken ankle. http://www.swindonrobins.co/news.php?item.2158.1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter Most probably where my doom and gloom post has come from. Seeing a kid who lives just a few roads away from you smashing into the fence just a lap into his swindon career, doesn't put you in the best of moods.

The great British speedway revival is on. Crowds will be flocking back after that...tickets won't be able to be printed fast enough for next week. The difference in professionalism in the sport is night and day compared to last year....

Watched the Moto GP instead.....wonder why many of us still bother enduring with Speedway in Britain, when there's presentation and entertainment like that in Moto GP just on the other channel.

Enhancing its reputation it's built over the past number of years surely.

Absolute frigging shambles. Spent the whole day in the garage today, knowing there was the odd shower about but assuming there'd be little to worry about. Was looking forward to sitting down on the sofa and seeing some action again, only to find smashey and nicey stood in front of an empty stadium and that warm fuzzy feeling of disappointment that's become synonymous with British Speedway, returning once again.

It is tough(er) to get rides out there, but when you see some of the toilet over here getting meetings over there, it indicates to me that its more to do with Nick's willingness to get over there and get fixed up, than his ability. Hopefully Rosco will help him get sorted out.