BWitcher

You keep saying forget stats... stats are a record of a riders performance. So, effectively you are saying please forget how many races a rider wins. Are you telling me that you judged the ability of riders on something other then the amount of races they won?? Seriously?

No, 95 and 96 is the most comparable example. What season did those you list all race against each other?

Yes it is Fact. Eye and memory isn't fact. You can't forget averages, you can't forget stats. They are not subjective, but a representation of what your your eye is seeing. You're seeing someone win races regularly.. rarely if ever come last. That's represented in their average. Why do you think there were 30 odd top class riders? Quite simply because you saw 30 odd winning most of their races on a regular basis. Why was that? Quite simply because they weren't racing against each other as often as they do now. Take those 30 odd riders, put them into a format such as the Polish or Swedish League.. the 30th one would be a 7pt guy. If that is all you saw week in week out, you wouldn't be classing him as a top class rider. Even take the same 30 and put them in an EL format, the difference would be even more paramount. If you want evidence of this, take a look when the leagues were merged in 95 and 96. There were countless riders averaging 9+. You had riders like Charles Ermolenko averaging 8+. Had he rode his entire career in such a format he'd be viewed as being a bordering on top rider.. but once the format changed and the league shrank again, riders such as that went back down to 5-6pt men.

As said, quite simply you can't.

It's amazing how many unbeatable, dominant riders there were according to Sidney. The more he says that, the more he actually strengthens the argument that I and E I Addio have put forward. Sidney, it's very simple. Take the top 10 riders from the 80's, put them in the format it is now and they would end up with similar averages to the current top 10. Nielsen at his best would be higher, but that would mean other members of the top 10 would be lower. Likewise, that the current top 10, put them in a format as was from early 80's, you'd have a number of 10pters, and the rest 9+. It's maths, it can't be argued against.

Nielsen, Gundersen, Craven, Briggs, Moore, Fundin etc were all time great riders. Kenny Carter, Billy Sanders were not. The inferior EL is irrelevant, although Nielsen would still not have achieved as high an average in it as he did most seasons in the old format. A more applicable comparison is the Polish or Swedish League.

Most of that riders in that era are billed as being better than they were. Had the current format existed I can absolutely GUARANTEE you that many of them you wouldn't have thought anywhere near as highly. The simple facts are the top riders in each team didn't race each other very much, there was no Heat 13 and 15, you rarely saw them get beat and their status of being stars was cemented. I'm far from saying they weren't good riders, because they were but in all eras you always have 2 or 3 riders who stand out from the rest.

Thanks Leicester Hunter, that makes perfect sense. The season we are discussing though is 1984 when the starting rules changed.. perhaps they changed the rules on the averages at the end of that season? Then what Moxey is saying regarding Gundersen would make sense.

It's irrelevant when I 'arrived' on the scene. It was actually 1984 I first started attending regularly when Wolverhampton re-opened. Do you know when the rule was changed? Not looking to start an argument here, genuinely interested and more than happy to learn! The 40 exclusions makes more sense now you are including extra meetings.. open meetings of course will certainly not have effected his average. Gundersen had 43 meetings for Cradley, including challenges in 1984 averaging 9.54. In the league he had 24 meetings averaging 9.21. That's purely league, not including League Cup meets which likely counted towards averages?

Well they haven't counted as a ride or in the averages since I have been following speedway, which was from around 1985. Nor is it anyway possible that Gundersen suffered '40 tape exclusions' but still averaged over 9 as has been claimed if they did count. Not sure how many matches that year, but based upon 36 matches.. 36 x 4 is 144 rides... 40 of those are 0 from his exclusions... even if he won the other 104 rides.. his average would only be 8.67.... and lets face it, he didn't win them all did he.

Ronnie Correy had a very light punishment when he failed an alcohol test at the 4's. About 10 days I think it was. Certainly no more than 2 weeks. No bearing on this though as rules have changed since then no doubt.

I didn't think tape exclusions counted as a ride or to the averages?? Might be wrong though!

No it isn't common sense. It should have no bearing whatsoever in the end verdict.

Why is this still going? Witchhunt, nice kid, smiled when saw him in pits, have you seen him in pits, hang him, why, nothing wrong done, young had a drink, is it bad, have you drunk? poole bashers, what a talent, great rider, saw him pass live once, have you, innocent victim, mike lee best ever, wayward, not his fault, ward lee same different, no, talent is there, lee. knockers, what have you all done, do gooders, string him up, so talented, lee, bspa treated him so bad, he done wrong yes, innocent for sure. victim, you people only happy when he goes of rails, like lee, destroy him, best ever, ward up there, no young talent around, ward, emil, zmarlik, pawlickis, world class. who'd you pick, leave him alone, bullies, you can't debate, think he's great.

Not really as in the GP they are racing for lots more, top 8 for next year for starters.. so every point is vital. Not so in a one-off meeting once you've had a couple of bad heats.

The only 'false' average is the one Palm Toft obtained in the EL where as per all the second strings he has an inflated average. It makes 100% perfect sense for him to use his PL average. The average he obtained riding in the PL. It's simple. However the issue is many speedway fans are just that... and it seems promoters at times when rules are involved. Speedway has very basic rules. I agree to an extent. However, what DOES stop fans attending is when the rules aren't applied correctly, or manipulated. I would argue the exact opposite and argue you are no speedway fan if you are happy to idly stand by when that happens. In this particular case though, nothing to see, the rules have been followed.

Be ok, till halfway through when half of them can't win.

We have already lost Bridger..... it was going so well up until that point. The reality is, your comments are utterly irrelevant. It doesn't matter if he's the most exciting rider in the world, or the most boring. It doesn't matter if he's the best rider in the world or the worst, he will (one hopes) be treated the same and punished accordingly.

Well a 1000 of them are yours, so it wouldn't take you as long as you think.

Why would he tell him that? Re-hydrating is utterly irrelevant. https://bradfordhealth.com/alcohol-101-learning-new-facts-remembering-what-you-forgot/ See point 8, it makes it quite clear.

The thread would only be about 60 pages if you followed your own advice.

Of course Darcy's face is showing he isn't happy... it's hitting his pocket. Nothing new in the length of time with regards to Ward waiting. This was mentioned way back in the beginning that other cases have taken a similar amount of time. Harris never gets any stick does he.

And the question still remains... so what? Of what relevance does the number of members have to the issues being discussed in this thread? Apart from perhaps giving further compelling evidence to the intellect of the majority of speedway fans...

So what?

Don't forget the Kyle Newman incident too...