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I feel my point was proved correct last night. Pijper, as expected, couldn't beat Edwards in heat 8. Having Rathbone in that heat likely wouldn't have cost them any points (Rathbone looked stronger than Muff). But Pijper would have been favourite to win heat 12, so Berwick could have added an extra 2 or 4 points onto their first leg lead!

That's the point I was making, why put r/r at 2? Jenkins may get an almost guaranteed win in heat 8, but that was never gonna be enough for Oxford to beat Leicester over 2 legs! They needed him to take as many points off the 3 heat leaders to give Oxford a chance to progress imo

I suppose that's because no riders moved out if the RS criteria, they just dropped the RS rule (after 1 year of their 5 year plan)!

The rolling aves are from the last 3 seasons, 19,21,22. So anyone with an average from 2018 wouldn't use those figures for a rolling ave, would need to race 3 home & 3 away to gain a new ave.

When the RS rules were introduced, it was stated when a rider was no longer a "rising star" he would get a 25% reduction on his ave (to help them get a team place after improving enough to no longer qualify).

Lambert's 7.81 ave (7.61 with reduction) is based on his last 20 matches. If he rides against Lynn his final ave will then be based on his last 9 matches from 2019 & the Lynn fixture. Could change a lot!

Don't see it happening in the Prem or the NL tbh. Half expecting the jubilee league to be abandoned to!

Surely it won't become a one-off final again due to lack of dates? One thing I will say, ignoring this competition since August & racing the final in October just suggests the clubs have no interest / feel this is not an important competition! If the clubs appear to act like that, it's a terrible way to entice fans to come out on a potentially cold & wet October evening!

That happened before the play-off era if the Champions won with meetings in hand. But they still completed their fixtures. But I do agree it looks stupid completing league matches after the play-offs, not that I'm suggesting the matches shouldn't be run - just make sure the league is completed first!

Gotcha, I thought you meant 39 plus RS, not 39 total. Yes that would be weaker, but don't see the limit being that low!

Don't agree that's diluting the product, teams should average out at 42, so 39 + RS is no weaker than this year?

I don't know if the rule change will do much good, riders like Woffinden, Pedersen, Madsen, Zmarzlik, Dudek, Janowski, Lindgren, Vaculik etc chose not to ride in GB long before the Extraliga+1 rule was made. Not worth giving up priority on Thursday's for the sake of 2 top riders (Bewley & Lambert) potentially coming back!

Clubs couldn't organise the league cup final till October this year, despite the qualifiers being known since May! How are they gonna cope with postponements due to Extraliga matches on a Thursday?

Do we know why 3 Armadale riders were missing? I notice they were allowed r/r & unattached guests but Belle Vue weren't! Should Belle Vue have been allowed an unattached 3.00 rider for Ablitt? Not that it would have made much difference!

What I don't like about the riding order is Kim Nilsson deserves his place more than 8 riders who have a better ranking via his GP Challenge win, but of he's ever level on countback in the series, he'll be ranked lower!

With r/r at 2, meaning Edwards in heat 8 (waste of a ride) I'd swap Pijper & Rathbone. If Mildenhall are going to put a nigh on unbeatable rider in heat 8, I'd have my 2 weakest against him & look to pick up points in the heats without Edwards in! Edit: Oxford did the same tonight Jenkins getting an extra ride in heat 8. Don't understand that, if Oxford wanted to build a good lead for the second leg, they'd need their top man beating as many heat leaders as possible, not second strings & reserves!

I personally think the Lambert signing is against the rules, but the rules are written so poorly, can't blame Belle Vue for taking advantage of them. To me the rules are saying "all signings must be between 25% & 75% of fixtures, you're allowed 2 transfers plus injury transfers". However the rules aren't clear enough, so it could be assumed the injury rule is allowed after the transfer window. It's also not clear if the 25-75% window is for each clubs matches or the league as a whole. Clubs also made transfers after the league cup matches & before the league started, which is also out with the "transfer window"! As most fans dislike guests, I do feel any rule which stops transfers & means more guests needing to be used is daft!

But the original guest planned, Nicolai Klindt only chose to race in GB after his Polish season was finished, the same as Lambert!

Mildenhall seem very slow picking dates. Berwick-PO SF away on Sat 8th, home match on 16th (surely 9th would be better). Then Leicester-KOC F away on 15th (home leg on 16th would be ideal)!

Previous a guest or r/r was allowed for any reason. Then a rider missed a match because he had "no equipment" & a stronger guest rider was allowed, cue everyone being up in arms & rule was made stricter! Not 100% sure who was involved but may have been Connor Coles & Mildenhall?

I wasn't comparing Kemp to Flint (who I think is a better rider), however Kemp's ave has gone from 3.82* to 5.58, whereas Flint's has gone from 6.40 to 6.83 so statistically Kemp has improved more this season! Flint clearly has done better than Kemp, but he was already far better than Kemp, who has actually closed the gap a little this season! *2021 rolling ave used for Kemp (as he only had 4 matches for Edinburgh), otherwise final aves used (not rolling).

Imo Basso is only at number 1, because he's been riding in a second string position all year (till Wednesday) even when he was going better than Brennan & Ostergaard, riding order was never changed! If he was given a shot at number 5, two things could have happened - got used to harder races (heat 13) to prepare him for the number 1 spot - or dropped more points leaving Cook at number 1. I don't know why most team managers refuse to make changes to the riding order throughout the year based on who's on form?

No doubt would still score 31+, but I'd always take a number 8 if using r/r

But now we're using a 10 match rolling aves, early season matches are no longer counted (when Kemp was scoring well at reserve) bearing that in mind, it's impressive he's kept Zach at reserve!

Kemp's 2022 average will be his highest season ending average yet. That's improvement!