AFCB Wildcat

I've not been to a GP other than Cardiff but I'm thinking of going to this one. Any advice would be appreciated on travel to and from airport and city to stadium, accommodation etc. Are tickets readily available as I see it's not a big stadium and I wouldn't like to pay for flights and find I can't get tickets?

I think this is going to be a cracking meeting but a shame it's going to be going head to head with Bournemouth v Crystal palace in the premiership which is a TV game too. Hope this doesn't affect the attendance as I know there will be a few divided loyalties

Thoroughly enjoyed the meeting. All riders played their part and it was hard to call how any heat would go. There isn't much home advantage at any track these days and I think this could go either way in the 2nd leg. People seem to be very harsh on Middleditch. I don't think for a second that he punched the air thinking it's all over, only that Klindt kept Holder behind him knowing that the difference between 4-2 and 5-1 in that heat will be huge going into the second leg.

Genuine question not a criticism, why is Poole the best destination for Speedway? Competition from 2 Premiership football clubs and lots of other competition in the area for people's disposable income as befitting a holiday area but still you see comments on here like "we've got football and bangers but there's nothing else to do in Poole but go to speedway". I'm also lost by Bridport? That's 40 miles away! If it's so easy to promote in a perceived affluent seaside area then what happened to Weymouth & Eastbourne who don't have any competition from football. I haven't got my head up Matt Ford's arse and the last time I went to Wimborne Road for speedway was to watch the Buccaneers but he promotes Poole speedway tirelessly and keeps the profile of the club high and in the public eye. All over Poole and Bournemouth there are adverts for the speedway, sponsored roundabouts, sign's along the seafront etc. which can't come cheap and his professional approach has been more key to Poole's success than the location in my opinion. I'm genuinely interested to know why people think Poole is an easy place to promote Speedway.

Technically you are probably correct but the fact is the start marshall called him to the tapes twice while he was cooling his clutch and twice Tai ignored him and became the only rider not at tapes when the clock hit zero. If he had moved to the line when called he would not have been excluded even if none of them were to the letter of the law ready to race so I would hardly say it's irrelevant.

Exactly that. The start marshall was being blatantly ignored all night and the referee eventually called time on it. Let's hope it's lesson learned and rules are applied consistently.

Having watched the incident several times now I think that what went against Tai was the fact the start marshall called him forward twice and he completely ignored him both times. The other 3 at least moved forward when beckoned although admittedly were still messing around when he walked away. Zmarzlik was still rolling towards the line as the clock hit zero so clearly not ready to race but I think Tai was the worst offender for ignoring the start Marshall's instructions however bad he was which is why he was made an example of. At the end of the day it was in his own hands and with a Polish ref he shouldn't have given him the opportunity to exclude him with so much at stake.

I think with Kent it's because Iwade still own the name Sittingbourne Speedway?

Okay, but how so? Movement is spotted and the tape release disabled. Surely that would prevent the delays associated with letting them go and then calling it back?

It seems to me that to much onus is on the referee. Could there not be a line judge a la tennis or linesman at football who could be knelt on the centre green looking along the start line? He could have a button that disabled the tapes from being released and puts the red light on if he sees movement and report the offender to the referee. If the referee has released the tapes before his button is pressed then it's a fair start.

Exactly, Janowski made a mistake allowing Pedersen through then re passed him with room to spare so what all the animated dramatics were about is beyond me. He made himself look completely foolish in my opinion.

Only just watched it and personally I'm getting fed up with this vendetta against Pederson, it's getting boring. Janowski a rider I've always liked has gone down to zero in my estimation and that imbecile cretin mechanic should be banned from the pits for life. Totally unacceptable.

Cardiff v Bournemouth, lunchtime kickoff. Sorted! :-)

Absolutely! Hopefully the powers that be will see to it that there's not a clash but we had to go to Liverpool on grand national weekend last season so I won't hold my breath.

I do, and have done for over 40 years so it will be hard for me. Bournemouth have been my passion since childhood but my wife has no interest in football so Cardiff will win no doubt but it's a shame that so many will face a conflict of interests

Exactly! In any case a clash with the football season can't be good. I hope it won't affect attendance. I know there are people on here that hate football and think speedway is the be all and end all but unfortunately for the sport they're a minority and there are going to be a lot including me with divided loyalties.

Thanks, I get it now :-)

I just downloaded this and have been having a play but there's no instructions. I can see how you set the riders etc.and I tried putting in a hypothetical meeting. The program generated okay but I can't see how you put in the results. Does it auto generate from online live data or can you enter scores manually? Thanks

Exactly, and I find it hard to believe that a rider that has been advised not to race again after suffering his last bad injury would engineer that just to get a re run. Yes, his mistake led to the incident no doubt and he tried to recover from it but even though he has a ruthless will to win I can't believe he would have deliberately put himself in danger of a life changing injury in such a nasty incident just to get another rider excluded.

No doubt he took Janowski's wheel but should the leading rider be responsible for where the chasing riders front wheel is. Didn't look to me like Emil changed his line to deliberately put his opponent in danger so to me it's a racing incident. I have sympathy with Janowski but the rules say a rider has to be excluded as the cause of the stoppage so I think the right call was made.

Interesting links. So speedway is pretty much the same price in relation to earnings in Poland as UK. Mind you looking at the comparisons, so is pretty much everything else so guess it must be our superior speedway that makes the UK so attractive to the Polish :-)

Best wishes for a speedy recovery Starman. Hope to see you back on here soon.

I can see that but then why have the semis and finals at all then?Just declare the winner the one with the most points after 5 races each. To me it's either or and this compromise system just devalues the grand final. I think the finals meant much more and were more exciting when it was winner takes all rather then the rider that has the most points over the meeting giving it up and being content to sit in 2nd or 3rd in the final as 1 or 2 points weren't going to make much difference to his overall standing.

I preferred the old system personally. The winner of a GP should take the most points from the event in my opinion and being an out and out winner in the pressure situations should give more reward than just consistent mediocrity.In theory you could become world champion without even making a final and to me that can't be right.

Maybe I'm seeing it wrong but should a "lower order kid" have to be sitting on a machine equal to that of a vastly experienced GP rider in order to be competitive?Surely at NL level rider ability should be the limiting factor not the bike. The trouble is these days kids want to be on a bike thats performance vastly exceeds their ability before they have learnt track craft.