Dave Goddard

I am at Premier Sports HQ ready to go later this evening

It would be brilliant if Ghostwalker could provide his excellent insightful previews again this year - they were immensely helpful during my previous stint as TV commentator. Is a racecard available anywhere to print out, or will there be tomorrow?

Pleased to announce that I will be providing the commentary once again too on both leagues and I will be taking tweets during the live Swedish broadcasts again!

"That Run-Off" as I still refer to it. BWitcher, was one from MBI and the other JSD Videos perchance?

Dave Jessup - every time he was in position to win a major title his engines let him down. Leigh Adams - if only his career hadn't coincided with that of the great Tony Rickardsson, he would surely have won a world title. (Anyone know how Leigh is doing now after his accident a few years back?)

I always call Adam Roynon "The Bionic Man" in my commentaries. Adam Skornicki is the "Rockman" as he looks like a member of a heavy metal band. George Major was "The Flying Banana" thanks to the yellow leathers he had made when he rode for Birmingham to match the club colours. Nigel Boocock was "Little Boy Blue" for the same reason. And I believe that last season Jack Smith and Jack Parkinson-Blackburn became known as "Jackson 5-1"!

Yes it was JSD Video - I've got a couple of old crash compilations of theirs somewhere - Coventry, Long Eaton and Peterborough, plus guest footage from a lot of other tracks (even including Linlithgow!). Personally I thought Colin's commentaries were pretty good, certainly better than my efforts over the last few years!

Was Colin "That's an interesting one for the referee...." whenever anyone fell off?

They were probably all using Mauger's bikes. (edit - just seen that Steve said the same above)

I did the commentary on that one hope it was satisfactory.

Do you mean the British semi-final from this year?

No-one able to answer? Just remembered another one - can't remember who it was but during a sidecar race at King's Lynn in about 2002, one of the passengers fell off the back of his outfit and was literally run over by the following machine. I thought he'd just been seriously mangled but after a minute or two he got up and walked away. And I don't think everyone walked away unhurt from this one unfortunately, but I remember Aidan Collins losing it on one of the turns at Workington, and his bike shot onto the centre green and hit one of the photographers. A truly horrible moment. Richard Lawson and Peter Karlsson's crash at Monmore Green earlier this year was very scary too and not easy to commentate on for the meeting DVD - I thought that Lawson's bike had smashed into the Wolves flag girl at first and it was a couple of meetings before she returned to the track. But in terms of horrible crashes, there are two from car racing I struggle to watch footage of at all - Alex Zanardi's IndyCar crash from 2001, and Tom Pryce in the 1977 South African GP. Yes there is footage online of both of them, and no you definitely do not want to see them.

Sorry to bump a slightly old thread but have been wondering, did Lee fully recover from his injuries? I remember after the crash he never seemed to be mentioned again in the speedway press, anyone know how (and where) he is now?

The other Scott Smith (the Aussie one) I think had a few nicknames too, he was just as crazy as Scud. "Wizzer" I think is short for the Welsh Wizard, and as for the ones referring to colours, they originated when most riders had black leathers and those who chose a different colour certainly got noticed. When George Major signed for Birmingham he had a set of yellow leathers made to match the club colours, and was nicknamed the Flying Banana!

Emil "Dave the Russian" Sajfutdinov. This one came about from some friends of mine who were at Cardiff the first year Emil rode there and they could not agree on how to say his name. After some arguing one of them said to the others "Oh forget it, I'm gonna call him Dave!" and the name has stuck among them ever since...

This may not quite count, but I recall from 1998 a King's Lynn v Ipswich meeting which was scheduled to start at 7.30pm but there was a heavy rainstorm shortly before the start. The Lynn track team bladed the whole of the track off and the meeting eventually started at 9.45pm, finishing at 11.15pm, and the fans stuck it out and waited through it all. The score? King's Lynn 27 Ipswich 63!

Question regarding this meeting...why did Jordan Jenkins ride in the second half but not the main meeting, and is Sam Woods still a Rye House rider and therefore was he a guest, or has he now joined Mildenhall? (I am asking because I will be doing the commentary on the official meeting DVD and want to get the facts as correct as possible.)

I came on here looking for news on last night and on whether everyone on the centre green is OK after the big smash at the end of heat 11. All I've read is the usual content that gives this place its bad reputation and has reminded me why I stopped visiting this site!

That reminds me of a heat between Wolves and (I think) King's Lynn in about 2002 which saw three riders excluded for knocking off others, and Daniel Nermark - who had been brought in as a reserve for another Wolf who'd been injured in one of the initial crashes so wasn't even in the race in the first instance - going round by himself. The Kevin Doolan incident at Birmingham mentioned further up the thread was quite scary - I remember him getting an electric shock off the bike when he tried to yank out the spark plug.

One from Newport v Exeter in the late 90s - Roger Lobb was brought down by his team mate on the second bend of lap one. The ref excluded Lobb and awarded the race despite the riders not having completed a lap.

1986 test series, England v USA. It was indeed Wigg who wheelied across the line to celebrate what would have been an 18-point max, the ref who excluded him was Paul Ackroyd. The same thing happened several times in the third test at Ipswich, Sam Ermolenko and John Cook deliberately wheelied all the way round in the last race in protest.

That was not aimed at him directly, I meant that people on here would rather see anyone who isn't any good at it just so they have someone to ridicule.

So according to this thread, you would rather have someone who is cr*p at their job so you can laugh at them and slag them off? As for me I am not passing further comment...

Keeping everything crossed for dry weather tonight in Motala! (edit) IT'S DRY!!!!!

Jensen is programmed to ride tomorrow in place of Bartosz Zmarzlik.