szkocjasid

If they've given up on play-offs yes, just sign Baek for Covatti & run a 7 man team. But if they think they can still make the top 4, guests for Covatti are stronger than Newman. You could question the morals of not replacing a missing rider, but they're not the only club to do that.

That's his prerogative, but if that's the case, his rivals could do the same & not guest for the Aces.

That would have been a worse change than all of Oxford's combined!

It was a 5 point average! Stupid rule, but opposition clubs should have pointed out the flaws pre-season, so can't complain after Glasgow won.

As I understand the rules, when Starke didn't have a club if Glasgow needed a replacement for Smith or Pearson, Starke could say to the BSPL "can I guest for my old club, show them there's no hard feelings" to which they'd reply "nope, can't allow that". But now he's signed for Workington if the same situation occurred he could say "can I guest for my old team & try to knock my new team out of the play-offs" to which they'd reply "yes, of course".

From memory there is a 72 hr wait for team declarations, so if Workington made the change on Friday, it would be valid from Monday. This ties in with the "we had to make a change by Monday" comments from Workington

That makes perfect sense. So naturally the BSPL wouldn't use your wording lol!

I can only comment on what I read via official sources, if there stuff happening behind the scenes, I have no way of knowing.

If Musielak was fit he could ride for King's Lynn, but he announced he wasn't fit enough to race in GB. Why would he want to sign for another club if he's not fit enough to ride over here? Unless of course he wasn't truthful when he left Lynn, then that's his own fault.

I wouldn't go as far as that, certainly he's not improved much since a promising early career. Besides who would you replace him with? Joe T, Nathan Ablitt, Ace Pijper? Flint is a better option than any of them.

The Bailey situation is stupid, forcing a club to use guests when they want to replace a (temporarily) retired rider is ludicrous. This all comes about when they change rules say due to the Robert Lambert play-off issues, but don't consider the ramifications. Trying to fix one problem often causes another.

I don't know what's the best way to work out percentages (group only or adding semi finals) but the fact we're having this discussion shows how poorly thought out / written the rules are. It shouldn't take a long forum discussion to understand the rules, besides we still haven't come to a conclusion lol! If the rule was 15 matches like you suggest, it would have to be 15 league & bsn group stage matches only. Wouldn't be fair for a team to reach the bsn semi's, have those matches count & have to make changes sooner than a team that didn't qualify from the group stage.

When clubs have "no facility" such as the Lynn situation now, they can use a guest up to 75% of missing riders average. When the SCB posted he must return or be replaced they should have added "or the facility will be removed". I'd say it's the SCB who look silly here, not Lynn.

Flint really has been disappointing recently, with his experience & Champ average, should be the top RS in the league. I know he has ambitions to move up the Speedway ladder, but not showing it in GB Speedway. The good news for him is it looks like he could be a RS again next year as his average has dropped below 4.00.

While Barker doesn't seem a great guest, Glasgow wouldn't get anything out of this match whoever they got, so he won't cost them. Tbh i'd have gone with r/r give my own riders more track time.

The rules say BSN series, it doesn't say BSN series group stages, so maybe they do count the Semis & finals of that competition? I think Celina won the last heat because she made the gate, she probably would have won a race in every match of she could make the gate consistently,.

Workington have 6 BSN fixtures, so 75% of 22 = 16.5. Could even have 8 BSN fixtures.

Starke's Glasgow average is higher than Leibmann's Workington average. Starke & Pijper combined have higher averages than Ivacic & Garrad. Of the two teams Workington have made the better change imo.

While McGurk, Hodder, Perry & James have struggled this year there doesn't seem to be a great amount of replacements out there for them. Weakening the NL won't make next season any better. I honestly think they need to use the Prem's rules of weakest rider at 7 / can't get replaced in heat 8. At least that was these 2.00 riders will race each other twice a match.

Leibmann was averaging 2.45 (2.82) from reserve. Pijper was averaging 2.70 (3.30) from reserve. Starke was averaging 3.38 (4.36) in the top 5. Seems a no brainer who to bring in.

Totally agree with that, basically they dropped Klindt for Riss because they wanted to use Nicholls as a guest for Kerr. The BSPL / SCB should have said no to dropping Klindt when Kerr was injured. Riss could've replaced Kerr, then when Kerr was fit he could replace Klindt = no guests needed.

On paper Birmingham should get 50, but they've been so awful this year, it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't reach 40.

The Premiership needs Poole more than Poole needs the Premiership imo. Poole have shown they can get great crowds in the Champ as long as they race on Wednesdays. Now if Poole were allowed to move up with a Wednesday race night, then they might be interested.

Brilliant answer, why would British Speedway want to fly over foreign based riders or have to find them accomodation etc when they don't score points? I think the minimum 4.00 average for foreigners is a great rule. Go back 5/10 years and riders like Rafal Konopka, Anders Andersen, Arlo Bugeja would keep getting chances on 3.00 averages at reserve. Nothing against these guys riding in Britain, but shouldn't be taking the place of a Brit who will score as many.

Pride. No one wants the wooden spoon.