pandorum

That is a shock. I never thought Scotty like THAT He ACTUALLY believes that the sport is being RUN?

Severe lack of talent. What is commonly known as a flash in the pan. Dumped in Poland and dumped in England where next for him to stink the place out?

A water main burst would involve a bit more than a stop cock turning off as, and the clue is in the name, a main is a pipe that serves a wide area. They are generally about a metre down and when they burst they tend to cause a hell of a lot of flooding as they are under high pressure. The amount of water that comes out of them, even a 4" main, is staggering to behold and it would leave the immediate area flooded and not just saturate the ground. It was obviously NOT a water main and more likely simply have been a plastic service pipe. They tend to be put in by a contractor or even the landlord and are usualy a few inches (sometimes a lot less) below ground and can be broken simply by pushing a spade into the soil. They are turned off by the simple act of turning a stop cock. When located they can be stopped by the even simpler act of bending the alkathene 180 degrees and holding it firmly in your fist.

True it is all speculation but it was enough to spark the statement on the BSPA site so seems a little bit more don't you think? A burst water main would have flooded the place and been a tad harder to turn off. I have seen water mains of small and large diameter burst and the consequences of that a dozen times. So it was a burst/cut water service pipe rather than a main which usually are laid a few inches underground with no protection and can easily be sliced through with a shovel. Once discovered this can be turned off with ease from a stop cock and as these are usually about an inch or two in diameter alkathene pipe and not under the pressure a main would be the consequences a lot less severe. The puddle in the photo suggests just that. What can be done if BV are found to be guilty of manipulating a rain off on a sunny day? The simple answer is they should be thrown out of speedway. But of course the sport is in too dire straights for it to do that and that would scupper the grandly named tin shed that would become the National Stadium. Award the match to Poole? Unfair to the others that need to go there as a full BV side probably would have gotten 3 points. heavy fine? BV are potless. Reimburse Poole fans and BV fans for their trouble? Gets my vote. Send them a strongly worded letter? Probably all the SCB can actually do. Whatever happens and whatever excuse is rolled out the sport will have lost a lot of fans. It's credibility is unaffected as it has not had any for decades now and is a joke sport with the tiny minority of non speedway people who actually know it exists. It's not the first time something like this has happened and as long as the teams are at the mercy of foreign leagues it won't be the last. I feel sorry for the fans who took their hard earned time and money to go and watch a speedway match. Like probably everybody here been there, done that and got the T Shirt. We have all travelled hundreds of miles for rain offs and accept this as part of supporting speedway. But this is different and if proved to have been a set up to cover BV's weakened state then the sooner the EL dissapears and we start to try and rebuild our sport using home grown and home based riders the better.

Absolutely mate! It should be a cracker especially as the Russians have their last WTC place up for grabs. That is why I am dissapointed that Vadim Tarashenko isn't there. Povazhny seems to be their talisman but one of the youngsters may well surprise. And no Dudek or 'Squeaky' Zmarzlik for the Poles. And of course no Artem. Wonder if it's the 18 heat format with the 6 man team..

Are there any streaming links for these matches?

Probably because he is crap mate and whatever promise he showed is long gone. Borodulin and Biełousow looked handy on the Russian meets that were broadcast last year. Pity no Tarashenko as he is a good prospect and way better than MJJ who has fizzled out into PL standard at best

excellent news. hope there is a stream Wonder who the Russians will put out. Be nice if they give Tarashenko and Ivanov a go as they seem to be the best young up and coming Russians. As you say Russia have come on well this last few years and are a serious challenger for the WTC this year.

This is true but in general Bomber never really looked like he could actually challenge for a rostrum place and mostly was lamentable. Tai on the other hand might just be able to do that. He was excellent against good opposition yesterday in Poland and seems to be riding really intelligently and having good equipment helps that. Of course one swallow does not a summer make so we shall have to wait and see if he can build on the weekend. Best of British to him and even though I want a Russian to win the SGP I will be giving him my support across the season and would not at all be dissapointed if he was able to pip my fave Russian.

Sadly miss all the weekend action next week as off on a drinking binge in London but enjoy it all. Two good meetings and a good GP. Stars of the weekend Emil and Tai

Plymouth seem a bit shorthanded maybe he could get a gig there? Not as good as the first but also interesting contesdt

What an entertaining meeting. Wroclaw deserved their win. Hope they get a few more through the gate next time. Woffy was awesome. This weekend he has shown a lot of detractors what he is made of. Good to see Artem getting among it as Russia will need him if they are to have a chance of WTC glory. Sadly we have nothing other than Tai so it's not likely we will make the final. I thought the second match would be the pick today with Emil, Nicki and Greg Laguta but it will have to be good to beat this one.

You may be right mate as I was watching a stream that was hardly brilliant but there seemed to be sections of the terraces that were very sparse.

This is true. He may be able to walk on water and has experience of bringing the dead back to life but even he would baulk at trying to transform Team GB into a decent speedway outfit capable of actually challenging for the WTC. Also working with the BSPA would probably be worse than being nailed to a plank of wood although his dad did have some experience with snakes which he might be able to pass on.

I actually agree with you. But Tai is there and Mike isn't and the lad has justified that selection so far. But would have been good to see the love of your life in there as well

Well done Emil. No shame for Tai coming last in THAT race Certainly proving his doubters wrong so far. Him and Emil were stars of the show for me. Damn good GP and was certainly surprised that so many Poles have discovered the power of invisibility as at least a third of the crowd seemed to have that power. Either that or it wasn't apparently a sell out as we were told earlier on here which is worrying for the GPs as if they can't sell that one out etc etc

What a good meeting. I am torn for the final as Emil is my man but would love it if young Tai could get a win. All they have to do is beat Gollob

Rzeszow made hard work of that Gorzow are awful. Like the nutbag said they spent so much on NKI they had nothing left for anyone to support him. Coverage was good. I like the start captions because they are big enough to actually read. Not a bad start to the TV coverage. One poor meet and one decent one. Dudek looks like being one of the stars of the season again. Bartosz looked a bit stale but will probably shine again this season once he gets a few meetings in.

Looks like we have sorted out who will be bottom this season Didn't Bjarne Pedersen used to be a decent rider or did I dream that

Well here we are again at last for some Polish speedway. does anyone have any decent links to todays action?

Nice article and first time I have looked at the Sun in decades Good to see the lad is recovering. A very brave lad to keep coming back after what's come his way. But then that's common coin among this sport. Hopefully he has fulfilled his quota of injury and gets a chance to show his full potential.

Think it's time they dropped this Manchester United of British speedway analogy as in 21st century terms they are more like Hartlepool or Torquay. Nice to see it's been green lighted but it's still not built and having a bit of experience of this kind of thing having worked on projects a lot bigger than this for the last 40 years it will need a lot of things to happen quickly to see it open in March 2014. 6000 seater? Didn't look like too many 'seats' in the graphic. BV still have the problem of attracting a crowd to help pay for this. Best of British to them of course but it's hardly worth going overboard about as it's still a pretty 'cheap' looking stadium for 10 mill. It might bring the sport in Manchester into the 20th century but it's still hardly a quantum leap from Scunthorpe or Leicester or Mildenhall's stadium Good news of course but it's still little more than the normal tin shed with a bit of concrete to stand on.

The new additions are excellent and much better than endless interviews with riders saying the same thing week in week out. Chris Louis does a good job with the Inside Track feature and the snippets from the other tracks is a very welcome addition.

Pehaps they could have improvised and used husky teams instead of speedway bikes.

Thats a great idea fat bloke racing in the second half. It would probably be hilarious. We had a lot of fat bloke racing in the 70s but they were usually the guys in the team. The answer sadly is really Yes! British Speedway IS A Dying Sport. The only thing that can save it is huge investment or a fairy godmother but there is little chance of that happening. The fairy godmother is the more realistic which shows how bad a state the sport is in. Once SKY bail out a lot of teams are going to have to cut their cloth drastically and we may lose tracks. The sad part is speedway lives in a different era to the majority of the population here in the UK.