Edward Barrett

Well I am just glad it is back on Sundays, due to a change in work I was not able to go for the past 4 years. I got to the final EL meeting and met up with folk who I had stood with for many years. That is what speedway is about, the friendships built up with other supporters, mainly home but away also. Hopefully the south east will help in discovering new riders of the calibre of Dave Jessup and Gordon Kennett to re-build the England squad in the next 2/3 years.

Why pick on those two?, Harris was crap, 4 points from somewone who "pretends" to be a GP star, surely he has ridden that track in his long and industrious career?

NP is a character who puts that extra " something" into the sport. How many of you who are castigating him for his riding would not want him in your team, or even riding over here in the so called "Elite League" this season? He would add extra supporters on the gate wherever he rode. Gollob had a reputation for being a dirty rider, who remembers the incident at the now defunct Hackney when Boyce decked him after one of his moves, and yet he is now revered as a former rider. The sport will be the poorer when he finally hangs up his leathers.

I was not having a laugh or sticking the knife in, yes I could have worded my last sentence differently, but I voice my opinion as I see it. There is a big difference between the GPS' and league racing, sadly he just has not got that "something" for the former. In league racing he is still a force to be reckoned with, and when he has guested for us he's given his all, unlike other guests we've had. Hope that clears that up.

Harris ought to do the decent thing and quit the GPS', he is not doing himself any favours, and he is making British Speedway a laughing stock. He is a good league rider, and can give s lot of decent advice to up and coming riders, but please, stop embarrassing yourself on the world's stage. You haven't got it anymore.

It is all well and good saying we are "Miles ahead of them", ...but we did not beat them, did we? So we aren't,are we? It is easy to blame the Team Manager, but the bottom line isif the riders go out on the track and do not beat the opposition, then it is down to them, end of We have not got the "quality" of riders any more, and that is something the BSPA need to address, not Middleditch; he can only work with what he has availabe, and that is only Nicholls, Woffinden, and who else?.......................

Typical of him; "Me, me, me." Not one word of contrition that his dirty tactics have wrecked another riders' season.

Mmm, I must remember this post should a similar incident occur down at Wimbourne Road between Pooles favourite rider, Lewis Bridger!!!, and Chris Holder. Anyone care to bet that Mr Shovlar would be definately singing from a different hymn book!!!!!!! :wink:

Well, looked at from the u-tube recording it seems that Batchelor had 2 goes at Smith, the second one being the one that did the damage; a correct decision by the referee to penalise what was a blatant piece of unfair riding, (fairly typical of Batchelor, unfortunately!). As posted elsewhere, no doubt Mr Shovlars dismissive comment would be somewhat different if Holder had been on the receiving end of Batchelors antics!!

The simple answer to that question is no. Harris has had his chances and is just not good enough, his performance last night was dire. Out of Barker, Bridger and Kennett possibly offer Barker a wild card at Cardiff next year, of the three he showed some fight in the WTC.

It would be nice to think that somebody would be behind Harris when he is in the GPs!!!

Good to see that the organisers are doing things the "British" way, we reward bank failures by giving the billions fo pounds, and then a few months later do it again, they give a rider who is a failure in the GPs' a wild card for the following season; terrific No doubt if Harris comes 12th next year they will say the choice is justified.

Surely the mark of a true quality rider is one who can ride all track surfaces? The riders know what surface Olsen prepares for the GPs', he's done it often enough, and the riders should be competent enough to adapt their set-ups to adapt to them. Sorry, Harris is a good and exciting rider, but he is not in the same league as the top riders, if he was he would have been their by now. People are still living off his Cardiff performance, which unfortunately was a 'one off'.

Have to agree with you there Parsloes; it was said in the Star that he needed a decent show to push his case for a wild card, well he did not provide one, so on the form of this season he does not warrant one. If the other "contenders" for a British representation are not deemed mature enough; shock!, horror!, perhaps we should have a season without any British contenders, let's face it, the ones we have had this year have not covered themselves with any glory, but served only to show that when it comes to the biggest world stage we are "also rans".

Would the tracks be big enough to cope with them??

Very fair and very sympathetic post, and one can only sympathise with both him and his family at this time. But, does'nt it just show what strength of charecter he must have to cope with this situation and not let it affect his performances this season? If he can handle this situation, then the "pressure" of the GPs will be nothing in comparison. He probably would not have a debut like the young Russian, someone like him is a 'one off', but I would be willing to have a modest bet that he would have a credible season. It certainly would not be anything like the embarrasing flop that Mr "superstar" Nicholls produced this year!!

You're probably right there SteveEvans, but he should'nt as he does not deserve it. Apart from one flash of brilliance at Cardiff, he has been pretty mediocre throughout his GP 'career'. Do we HAVE to have a British rider as a wild card at Cardiff? If there wasn't one, would the place be empty?, I doubt it because at the end of the day speedway supporters want to see, theoretically, the best riders riding in one place at one time. Formula 1 motor racing does not, I believe, use wild cards at their various venues, and I don't believe it detracts from attendances, it is only speedways' administrators who seem to be of the opinion that supporters are so blinkered that they will not attend an event if one of their countrymen is not riding. If they do go for a British wildcard, then go down the same route that Lyons has in the WTC, go for the future and choose a youngster.

Agree, and I'd go one stage further and nominate one of the younger British riders in the 'Team GB' squad as the wild card, let's have an end to this 'Nicholls deserves it as he's been the British no 1 for many years', the clue is in the word "been". He's been abysmal this year, and pretty awful in the past two, and quite frankly it has been embarressing to watch him. Andy Smith got some flak for keeping on when it was obvious he was not in the same class as the rest of the GP riders, well in my opinion Nicholls this season made Smith look a quality rider.

Apologies if this has come up before, but......................................these riders are supposed to be the 16 BEST riders in the world, ( well, Nicholls is in there also ), surely they should have the skill and experience to ride any track? They, along with us supporters, know what track Olsen is going to prepare, he's done it for long enough!, so surely for them to use the arguement 'the track caught me out' can't be an excuse all the time. We get told that they have 2/3 bikes, use different set ups for different tracks. They ride 2, 3, maybe 4 times a week on varying surfaces, so as I say,surely they can cope with the surface that Olsen prepares for them? No doubt the technically minded can provide a reasoned answer to this, but this is just a thought from a non technically minded person!!

No, Team GB aren't riding, work it out!!

Good post, this year there has been a proper sense of team spirit, riders working together for one purpose, that can only bode well for the future, which is what Lyons is looking toward. Nicholls presence in the squad would have undone all the good work of Monday, and his apparent absence on Monday gave the impression that he was not prepared to be part of the team anyway, unlike Richardson who swallowed his dissappointement at being omitted and was there to offer help and advice. We can all be wise after the event, and say so-and-so should have ridden, this or that decision should have been made, but Lyons stuck to his decision, replaced the rider who was the weakest with an in form rider, Richardson, and we nearly surprised everyone by getting through. Credit to the riders, credit to Lyons, hopefully he will remain as manager for a while and continue building for the future.

good meeting last night, the result from our perspective was what was to be expected, the team did not let us down; Danny King was a revelation and surprised quite a few people I would imagine, Lewis will relive beating Gollob as well. Stick with that team, we are not going to progress on Thursday, so we may as well use the experience as a learning curve for the future, but Lyons must instruct them to go out and ENJOY the whole thing and learn from it. Also good to see Richardson and Loram amongst the team, even though Lee may have been dissappointed not to have been riding, he was man enough to turn up and offer advice and assistance if it was needed; pity Nicholls chose not to, perhaps he had more important matters to attend to?!

Fair post, NicWolves. Nicholls has got "form" for, shall we say, moving riders wide when he gets desperate for points, remember the incident with Harris when he dumped him in a lump into the fence a couple of seasons ago? As for all this "poor old Scotty" stuff; just supposing it had been NP in Nicholls place, I bet 90% of people who are standing up for Nicholls would be standing up for the Russian instead!

Good post T.N.T. A few seasons ago there was a pretty well publicised spat between Martin Dugard and Stefan Anderson, when the former felt that Stefan had taken him out, and punched him on the track. That resulted in a pretty hefty fine, and I think a ban. Lasts night incident was again on track, televised live to many countries, and both parties get a fine? Totally wrong. They should have been ejected from the remainder of the meeting, and suspended from the next one. That would send a message to all participants that that behaviour would not be tolerated. It would not make any difference to Nicholls, he's out of the series anyway, but it would affect the russian, and give him an early lesson that he needs to exercise self control if he really wants to get to the top.