John Leslie

I agree. Always said he'd never make it at football. Become England captain and get 100+ caps? Don't make me laugh...no chance tattoo boy!

I agree totally. I think Tai would appeal far more to today's youngsters if he had a pencil moustache, wore a fashionable smoking jacket, and perhaps spoke a little like Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter (It might even get him a Brylcream sponsorship)

Absolutely! It totally explains why that David Beckham bloke never got anywhere and is totally ignored by the media. Without the tattoos and bizarre fashion sense i reckon Beckham could have gone on to be a household name.

Go for it. We shouldn't be squeamish about such things if it could save lives in future. If you have compiled empirical data to show that more life changing accidents occur on the straights, as you claim, then you should show it...Lives are at stake here! (on the other hand you could just be making it up, to be argumentative because you stupidly want to ignore the view of someone who has slammed into various kinds of fence and knows which gave him the best protection) p.s. I don't think it's very nice of the people who have called you retarded, I would never call you retarded without medical evidence.....but I think urgent tests should be done.

Where's your evidence to support this claim? Have double blind tests been done? Have you got the statistics to show where tests have been done with correctly and incorrectly installed fences? What is the exact definition of a "poorly designed air fence"? How does it compare to a "well designed air-fence" in technical spec? Really???? My experience says that the worst injuries occur on the bends. Please share the empirical evidence that says I'm wrong.

According to google, Tom Sykes is also a motorcycle road racer. But neither of them are in the betting for SPOTY, whereas Tai is. Yes. That's the betting that I was referring to.

Who made you the internet police? Tai's expected forthcoming appearance on SPOTY is a very relevant topic to discuss. Well I've never heard of either of them....and nor it seems have Ladbrokes, since they aren't in the betting. Tai of course is.

Yes. In the early 90s, the Angling Times ran a campaign for everyone to vote for Bob Nudd. He polled a massive number of votes, but the BBC decided to discount organised campaigns.

:lol: :lol:

Quite right. Some people don't read (or maybe don't want to read something positive that conflicts with their need to feel bitter and miserable). No one has suggested Tai will win SPOTY - That's a foregone conclusion, the award is going to Mr Personality himself, Andy Murray Tai won't even be on the shortlist that the public get to vote on. But it's possible he could be on the long list before it gets filtered down to the BBCs list of approved choices And it's certain he will get an invite to be in the audience, and will get some kind of mention. That could be a 2 second clip in the "other British World champion" section...or maybe they would be interested in getting his bike into the studio for a 2 minute interview a la Breakfast TV. Certainly the more noise we can make, and the more we can make the BBC aware of their Speedway-loving licence payers, the better chance of a bigger mention. There's nothing to gain from being a bitter, doom and gloom sadcase.

After making sure I was awake to watch the BBC breakfast item, I went and missed it. But I switched over to BBC News 24 and caught the 8.45am interview. This was an interview of maybe 3 or 4 minutes. Tai saying how his family had emigrated to Aus, he started riding there aged12, and they all moved back to England and lived in a caravan for 3 years to support his career. Explained how he'd broken his collarbone twice and carried on riding. No mention of his tattoos. He came across well.

To be honest I have no idea who this Hawksbee and Jacobs are, but the positive to take out of it is that what sounds like two neanderthal football fans have been made aware of speedway because of Tai's achievement....aware enough to be thinking about it and mentioning it on their football programme. There's no such thing as bad publicity

Some are, some aren't. But even if it's decided at the first corner, you only have to wait 60 seconds and the race is over. Then four new riders start level again. Compare with Formula 1, where the race is often over before it starts. The best driver is given several hundred yards start over the worst driver. The best usually stay at the front, and the rest follow round for two and a half hours...thrilling!

Told ya, didn't I? (Actually I cheated...I saw Tony Steele yesterday lunchtime, and he showed me the script)

I just want to tell you, Birmingham, good luck. We're all counting on you.

Our new young British World Champion, didn't mention that he'd just won the world title? Are you sure your hearing aid was switched on? Or were you expecting the world champion to talk of things other than his world title win? Our British World Champion gets a five minute interview on National radio on the biggest breakfast show in the country (which probably has listening figures to shame many TV programmes), and somebody still has to have a whinge

At least the Birmingham website hasn't gone down yet...(where are you other 26 people?)....and I notice on there that Ford is sponsoring the Birmingham leg!

Just the new version of "Fx" now that we have to call exclusions "disqualifications"

Asking how many people could remember something from 3 hours ago, I presumed he was chairman of the amnesiacs society

Can you find out for me if it's true that Mickey Mouse has a Neil Middleditch wrist watch?

Jonasson and Grajczonek will score more from the R/R rides than Tungate would have. And replacing Dyer with Newman could yet prove a masterstroke. Brum should have found a reason to switch Covatti for a more in-form rider. I don't think Shovvy will be phoning Thomas Cook for a cheap flight to Rome next Monday

Yes, but his brother Keith is very well known....probably more so than his sister, Dame Edith

I can only see the league champions' lack of heat leader strength being exposed tonight. I think Poole will build up a big enough lead tonight to make the second leg of the play-off trophy a formality. After tonight I don't think there will be any way back for the League Champions.

Maybe with a British World Champion looking likely, the BSPA website has had more than 27 visitors and crashed?

Firstly, I'm certainly no website building/hosting expert, so I might be asking daft questions here, but what is the purpose in having every club website hosted on the same servers? I can understand some logic in the idea that all club website domain names should follow a uniform pattern, but wouldn't it be simpler to allow each club to build their own website and host it wherever they want, and then the BSPA just point all the .co domains to the relevant places? A top Elite club might want to pay more to be hosted on a server that doesn't crash when it suddenly gets 27 visitors, whereas a small NL club might even be able to find somewhere to host their site for free. As long as the official BSPA .co domains point to the right place then to the outside world everything would be uniform. On the subject of the uniform domains, it still mystifies me why all clubs have a Colombian domain, and why they use nicknames rather than the word speedway. If I was a non-fan (in say Eastbourne) who had just seen speedway on TV and wondered if there was a local track, I would surely look for "Eastbourne Speedway". I wouldn't know to look for "Eastbourne Eagles" and I certainly wouldn't expect to find them with a South American domain. Surely Birminghamspeedway.co.uk , Eastbournespeedway.co.uk etc, is better than Birminghambrummies.co and Eastbourneeagles.co ?