FTM

Iv,e seen and heard Jack about 6 meetings now and there is a different approach and confidence in his commentating with certain riders .With Sam he is more on edge and prone to making c**k ups . Whereas with his other co commentator he is very relaxed and much more on the ball .The other commentator is very good his name Scott Nicholls .Don,t know why this is but if you have chance to see him with Scotty Jack is pretty good .

Don,t agree with your choice there are better riders than Koschieca who should have been given it .Either of the Pawlicki brothers for starters unless they and others have turned down the chance .Also if you are posting try and get the name of the track right . .

Signed good luck hope we can all bring enough clout to make the change

Kasprzak £100 more Pedersen £50 less

Problem at the Showground tonight after ht 8 as the tapes went up for next ht 9 half the Floodlights failed and air bags were deflated due to power failure meeting called off

Thought he did very well but he,s useless at Basketball

Sad Sad news R.I.P. Nobby at last you are free of pain now. It was a pleasure to be a workmate and a friend at The home of the Oxford Speedway Team for a couple of years.Condolences to Shirley and the rest of the family someone please let me know when the funeral is thx .

Although some fans won,t( or don,t want to ) accept comments from the Bees promoters reference Friday night the Referee has complete control over the meeting from start to finish. If he doesn,t like any one particular thing if you as a promoter/ team manager/ or in my case trackman(during a meeting at Oxford) don,t rectify it he has carte blanche to refuse the meeting starting at all. IMO I think the fans are to hard on Mick Horton and Blayne as far as the lights and other problems with the Stadium because the Stadium owner has an onsite permanent electrician who is responsible for repairing /replacing lights etc who (although different people have changed througout the years ) has been there ever since I first got on the trackstaff in 1985 .This situation also existed at both Peterborough and Oxford when I was trackman at both operated under the Colin/Mick Horton promotions . Most promoters operate under the renting of premises from another existing organisation who,as far as I can see, are basically not providing adequate stadiums to race in . Hopefully things will improve all round for promoter and fans alike as I appreciate you ,the fans, work hard for your money and obviously like a reward for paying it over the counter and from what I read on here at least Mick and Neil to come on to answer problems whereas a lot of other promoters don,t.

Get her a tele to call her own then she can watch sport relief dog games on bbc this week speedway on Sunday and when it comes around again front row seat for Crufts

I don,t think you will ever get a level playing field for either side to agree on. I started going in 1965 when I lived half way between Oxford and Swindon ,my cousin lived closer to Swindon so I used to go to Oxford thurs, and pick her up Sat to go to Swindon. In those days Oxford had Jimmy Gooch,Ron How,Arne Pander,and Colin Goody as their top 4 Swindon had Barry Briggs,Mike Broadbanks,Martin Ashby and Bob Kilby as their top 4 .I could never split the two teams as one better than the other so come local derbies it didn,t matter who won .I think the racing was better teamwise than now as don,t matter who was out in what heat be it star or reserve the better rider always looked after his team mate .IMO speedway took a backward step when laydown engines took over from uprights ,they are much faster but more unpredictable and there are (although air fences have helped ) much more serious injuries in the last decade than there were then.Another major factor in this problem is track materials and track maintenance and I say this being a trackman (retired cos no one wants me ) but not being crabby just putting my honest opinion .

Hopefully Rosco will be given a chance to put his mark on the team without most of the fans and critics on here ripping his head off after the first meeting if we dont win. I await with baited breath somebody says something constructive

you reckon we got young blood good enough to ride against the likes of Poland and Denmark cos we havn,t raced since October last year and there wasn,t anyone apart from Craig Cook good enough then and I don,t see any saviours riding over the crest of a hill to do it this year .But heigh ho anything to have a dig at Bomber

Why would the Track Curator need to take a day off if the track is being used then He must be wanted on site for obvious reasons

R.I.P.Dougie I got to work with him for 1 year when I was employed as assistant trackman /general dogsbody by Jim Lynch for the Racers as other people have said he was very protective of his track but I still managed to learn a few new things once we got to know each other a very good bloke he will be sadly missed by a lot of Reading fans .

Interesting to see while watching the cricket coverage from Australia over the past two nights during the highlights show after finish of play there is a 2 to 3 minute showing sky sport coverage for 2014 right through to October nearly every summer/autumn sport you can think of apart from one. SPEEDWAY. With uk having the World Champion I would have thought they would have at least mentioned Tai and Cardiff GP .They were advertising the Cardiff day out up to the end of the new year but in 2014 zilch. Hope our sport doesn,t go the same way as Premiership /Championship lge1 and lge 2 footie coverage which is now the sole domain for live play via B T sport or it could disappear of our screens forever .

I still stand by my idea of dropping the bags into a trench would be a more secure way of ensuring the bags didnt lift on impact The photos you have shown of both systems still have the bags sitting on the track surface and as I stated before a bike hitting the fence at speed at the bottom of bags will invariably lift them up giving virtually no protection for a rider hurtling into fence at speed.I don,t know if your comment about being silly was aimed at me, or other poster, if it was me as I said at the start of my original post I have erected and taken down air fences from the inception so I don,t consider my comments silly in any way and maybe your comment could be retracted.

I understand what you are suggesting but I don,t think there is a need for extra materials as long as the bags are fastened securely below ground level the bag will take the impact approximately 2 to 3 feet up on the front face which IMO will negate the bag lifting up out of the trench .There maybe a small problem of the bike bouncing away from the fence but no more than normal .as always safety is paramount and to negate injuries to riders the assembly crew must be A one in their building of the fence unfortunately this is not always the case as you don,t have enough time or manpower to change over from dogs/stock cars bangers etc etc to Speedway.I don,t know how Doc Bridgett works his miracles at Wolves cos I think they still run dogs Mon afternoon before Speedway at night If you ever read this forum Doc could you enlighten me and others . Cheers Mick C

I,m very proud to say it was My son Chivsy his friend Jay, and Pete and Jane Ballinger well done you guys and I am looking forward to a celebratory bottle at Xmas

Iv,e read with much interest the pro,s and con,s from many fans about the Air Fences but IMO there is one major design fault with the instillation of all fences .I was trackman at Coventry when they were first introduced although they were trialled the latter part of the year before .I think if there was a trench dug the width of the air bag about 2 feet deep around the edge of the fence the full length of both bends( the bags have their height increased by two feet to allow them to be within the FIM rule book) if the bags are then secured in the trench below the surface of the track I honestly don,t believe we would have had so many serious injuries in the time since they were introduced .The main cause of injuries is as most fans acknowledge the bag lifting and rider following bike under fence if the bike hits the bag halfway up the side there is no reason for it to lift.I saw Chris Louis get his serious leg injuries at Coventry when he hit the Stock Car gate cos his bike lifted the fence ,he went straight into the bottom girder on the gate which is obviously heavy duty to resist impacts from Cars.We never had anywhere near as many serious injuries when we had the wooden fence in situe.The Cov fixing is IMO one of the best in the country because we have the Armco barrier and eyelets are screwed into this and metal cables run through the eyelet loops tightened both ends of the corners and all the bags have strong fabric loops and clips fitted to this cable. It has consistently passed the FIM and British League speedway,s inspection but because they sit on top of the track surface a bike going at 60mph + is always going to kick it up hence the Chris Louis and latterly Chris Holder injuries.As a comedic end to just to enforce how much they should be fixed down when we were setting them up the first ever season we had a fair length of bags connected together on the top bend but not fixed down and the wind started to pick up, before we could get from the pits to the bend we lost 12 bags over the top corner of the track ,dog track fence and corner of the stand we had to hire a cherry picker to get two back from up a large tree needless to say we fixed everything down after that one at a time.

You beat me to it F/P I was thinking along the same lines are Phil & Neil going to pull names out of the hat or will the riders geographical home base be used in consideration of where they are sent .your point above highlights the problem straight away .If its a case of you go where we send you the selectors could find themselves with a vastly reduced squad of riders willing to take part .I can see the races involving N/L riders against each other being very important to the overall team results as I think the Swedish league (might have the wrong country could be Poland)operates a similar system of like for like abilities and as most 1 to 5 averages balance there selves out the reserve races could turn out to be the key to win .I hope there is a set precedent that only reserves can be used in said races and there isn.t a back door system to allow a top scoring rider to be used in a tac sub replacement if one team is way behind .I have seen polish matches where reserves may only get 2 rides and in 1 extreme case 1 ride when a top man had up to 7

Ive just heard my Auntie has grown a pair of B******S which now makes her my Uncle I think probably my post is nearer the truth than any of yours ever will be

your dead right with the end of your quote cos last year we were up to our necks INNIT

All promoters need to tidy up their stadiums to make them more presentable to their own fans and away supporters there is a lot that needs to be done in most (if not all clubs) .Most stadiums have more than one sport on their itenary and when a Sky match is shown there are an awful lot of overhead or long shots showing stadiums shortcomings and vehicles connected with Stock Cars or Greyhound not really in the best condition making the Stadium itself looking like a Scrap Yard effect.It doesn,t take a lot to tidy up most fans would probably volunteer to help and if there was a little incentive as well even better with a bit of money spent in the process but therein probably lies the problem Promoters don,t like to spend money .I think that the case of bigger crowds will never be changed well the meetings are shown live as most fans prefer to not spend hard earned cash if they can watch in the comfort of their own warm front room also not knowing who your 1 to 7 is going to be every week doesn,t help Maybe Sky could show matches on the same night from say 10pm to allow fans time to get home or record for later viewing so the diehard fans could get a double fix of their favourite sport .Most football matches are over by then which would give Sky another chance to increase their coffers with what is a fairly good fanbase sport to maybe attract more viewers .

First part of your post I agree with don,t agree Poole was a good racing surface at all Reference massive double hole /bump which caused Josh Grajczonekj to come to grief on turn 1 there are those that will say he was knocked off by Hans Andersen but there was no contact although Middlo says there was .I watched the replays from all sides and Hans was past Josh,s leg and bike when he was lifted up in the air caused by the poor racing surface. I am not a Swindon fan before anyone asks I think they were let down badly by Troy Batchelor and I know Peter Kildemand is an out and out racer but feel he should have had the captain in his ear last night telling him if you are beaten out the gate and round the first bend just consolidate 2nd and 3rd place for a 3 3 thus protecting their 10 pt lead Don,t think Rosco was switched on last night which was a shame .

Two points concerning tonights meeting at Wolves Pt 1 I also think Nils riding style caused the crash with Chris as he has a tendency to go in hard then lock back when into the bend as has already been said Chris was on the inside as they got to the apex and if you slow it down chris keeps a straight line as Nils turns into him IMO causing the crash . Pt 2 having seen the crash what planet was Lindgren on in the rerun out of last corner blatantly turning across Jason Doyle trying to slow him up for Adam Skornicki to get the 5 1 a very dangerous move as was proved by the reaction of Jason on the slow down lap resulting in Freddie being dumped on his arse which he thoroughly deserved .The horrendous amount of serious crashes we have had this year could have been added to with ease .I know riders have done this system of slowing opposing riders down for years but there is a safe way which wasn,t what I saw tonight .