Al Stewart

What is up with Gomolski is he a speedway rider at all, or just some idiot out of the crowd who is having a shot?

It has to be Ryan McDonald, if he is still riding. Obviously pretty unfair to saddle him with that but it shows where we have come to.

Apparently the r/r was checked and agreed with the referee before the match. This is normal, I've seen this happen plenty of times. I can't see how the result can be changed given that.

The referee should always have Green Sheets with them. It is their responsibility. They certainly shouldn't be using the programme, it can easily be wrong. Who was the ref?

Appearances for your own team are not considered nowadays for the 8-day rule. You are not allowed to guest twice at a track within 8 days.

Incredible finish anyway, what a ride by Lambert. And there was a wee bit of passing at the end.

It just shows how inappropriate the TR is when the match is close anyway. It would still be a last heat decider but KL would be 2 ahead instead of 1 behind. Fairer.

It's quite depressing how absolutely nobody can pass, not even Iversen.

Is that not very harsh? Morley was about the only good Redcar rider at Armadale, and tonight he started with a paid win and then held off a strong challenge from Riss in another heat. You've just signed a good rider and have a not bad team. I don't have to watch them every week but I'd say run with the team you have.

Any updates on weather?

You are learning.

That's exactly right. The reason the word 'may' is used in the rule is because an assessed average can also go down (eg from 7.00) so it depends what the situation is and the effect of changing / not changing the assessed rider's average and whether the other riders in the team have up to date averages. This is surely as obvious an example as there could be of a situation when a rider should be moved on to a new average at the time of a re-declaration.

Yes but it is understandably applied differently depending on whether a rider's average is going to increase or decrease from the assessed level. The point of the rule was to prevent riders retaining an unrealistically low average for too long. I presume in the cases you are talking about, the averages were 5 or 7 and were dropping. The point being that teams are not meant to benefit from riders' averages changing at different times. However when promoters try to remember why a rule was written, who knows what might happen. All the very best to Kozza after his injuries.

There is a rule which states that if you re-declare your team, but have an assessed average rider who hasn't achieved an average by 1st May, then that rider may be given an average on what he has done so far. That would certainly seem to apply to James Sarjeant who has done 4 home and 3 away I think, but is averageing about 7. If that is applied then you would have Kozza's 6.6 for a replacement.

What's useless Eurosport up to now, are they actually going to show it?

That is one big reason, definitely. But I think more than that, there are very few prospective promoters these days for the obvious reason that speedway is now a license to lose money. I think once the existing promoters had pulled out they would feel a sense of relief as well as regret and not want to be involved again, unless there is some reason to think that things will improve such as Belle Vue's change of track.

But what exactly was the right thing to do? At what precise moment should the meeting have been called off? The team that's winning want to go on, the team that's losing don't, it is a familiar scenario. A potentially good meeting wrecked by the weather, I'd like to know what anyone could have done about it.

Are there any updates from Pardubice? Just found them on the previous page, sorry.

That is really annoying from everyone's point of view. Absolutely not good enough.

A few observations. Move on if you don’t like them. The most common comment on the BSF or Facebook must be that “Edinburgh have got/ will get their way because Alex Harkess is BSPA Chairman”. It has never been justified and never will be. It is simply trotted out thousands and thousands of times without justification, and it marks those who say it as posters who don’t engage their brains. The truth is that Mr Harkess tends to veer in the other direction in order to avoid being seen to favour Edinburgh. Yes Edinburgh have had a lot of success in recent years but that is nothing to do with favouritism. Mr Tsunami (scourge of the BSF) has invented this ogre called Sam Masters who is always angry, whingeing or riding unfairly. It is absolutely laughable and as with a good proportion of Tsunami’s posts, he feigns knowledge where he has none. Anyone who knows Sam (Tsunami obviously doesn’t) knows that he is friendly, cheerful and a great guy to have around. We thought that was 100% of the time but after last night, clearly it’s only 99.9% of the time. Maybe Tsunami should ask Steve Worrall who was Sam’s team mate last year. The Edinburgh posters (the few left who bother with the BSF and also the Facebook ones) always impress me with their fairness, even Blobby though he can be deliberately provocative. Of all the posts I’ve seen there hasn’t been one trying to justify how Sam behaved last night, maybe he’d be disappointed about that but the fact is they are too fair-minded for that. They know he was wrong. But the posters never get credit for being so fair and balanced. I don’t believe you can say that about any other club. Obviously I understand the feelings of the Sheffield fans at Armadale last night after the heat 1 incident last night. If the roles were reversed I’d feel the same. But to then go on and say Edinburgh fans are jealous of Sheffield, or that we are ‘horrible b*stards’, well sorry that is childish tripe. As far as I can see all that the Edinburgh fans have been saying is that they like Sheffield Speedway and sympathise with their bad luck this season.

Sorry I'm posting from an iPhone, completely out of control.

It's Proctor he replaces

That is absolutely fair comment, the only problem with it is that you don't know what your income will be. Putting out a less expensive team might well lead to lower crowds and the whole thing turns into a downward spiral. If they were really being realistic, teams should probably budget for a 10% reduction in crowds each year, that seems to be what is happening at most places. But then that's that downward spiral again.

This not how I recall it. You usually know your stuff but I am pretty sure it went from 7 with bonus to 7 without bonus. I remember being concerned how it would affect Cameron Woodward who was in our team at the time. It may well have been 8 with bonus some time earlier.

Sedgmen was third in the Australian Championships last winter which qualifies him for a visa. Davies and Smith I presume qualify on the grounds of their 7 point average in their last season. I'm pretty unimpressed that officials being paid by taxpayers waste their time on this drivel, doing nothing but harm. But equally the BSPA should long ago have appointed someone intelligent (if they could have found such a person) who has no other job in speedway, just to oversee all of the work permit situations and ensure that we avoid exactly what has just happened.