AFCB Wildcat

You've pointed out nothing. You just keep asking me to remind you of things. Do you have Alzheimer's or something?

If you're trying to sound clever, you're failing miserably. Quite the contrary in fact. I didn't predict the 2023 champion, or any other year for that matter. I was saying that Bartosz and other riders worthy of becoming world champion can win the races that matter. Feel free to offer an alternative view point if you can, although I accept that sensible debate might be a bit challenging for you .

Are you for real? My initial point was that accumulating points in qualifying heats when you may have the favoured gates at the right time or be racing against reserves because of exclusions etc. doesn't make you the best rider in the world. The best riders come to the fore at the business end of the meeting in my opinion. The forum is about opinions though, so feel free to have a different one to mine by all means, and express it in an adult manner, but your responses have added nothing to debate and are just confrontational and pathetically childish.

Good grief! What is that even supposed to mean??

I've been reluctant to comment on this because it's been done to death, but if your calculations based on points scored over 20 heats are correct, Lambert would be a major contender for World Champion going in to the last round. Do you honestly think that Robert is the best rider in the series this year when he's been nowhere near in the finals? Bartosz knows how to pull it out of the bag when the chips are down. That to me is the mark of a champion.

It's a tricky one for sure. I've read and reread the regulation, trying to make sense of it and the only thing I can come up with is this. The header starts "SHALL be penalised with a fine or sanction as provided in the FIM disciplinary code. The final sentence that says that the jury MAY sanction any persons breaking the rules as follows. There is a direct contradiction between SHALL and MAY, so is the MAY referring to the offences listed below that give a variable punishment? I.e. different fines depending on severity and state 'UP TO' disqualification. In that case it could be saying that the jury MAY sanction anything between the given parameters for a given offence. For the offence commited here though, there were no parameters given. It clearly states 600 euro fine plus disqualification from the meeting. The Star didn't really elaborate on their interpretation of the rules when they used the word 'CAN'. Phil Morris was adamant though that it was black and white and that they had no choice. I think the whole section needs rewriting for clarity. As with a lot of things, I'm sure it made sense to the person who wrote it at the time but it's a bit ambiguous!

It was the Bournemouth air festival this weekend and the price of hotels was ridiculous. Probably just coincidence though Hopefully they'll hold it in Manchester or London next year

Even then, the covenants seem to disappear when the right palms are greased.

Last night was my first visit to Wimborne Road for 2 years and the track was much, much better than the last time I went. Josh was riding on the edge of the dirt and pulling out big strides, proving it's not a one line track and that passing is possible. A few getting caught out going too far into the deep stuff though. Although the scoreline was a bit one sided, Josh, Kye, & Paco gave it a good go, so it wasn't the bore fest that the scoreline suggests. More Sunday fixtures please! Or Friday

I know it might not have been by choice, but I still think that moving the date away from the traditional June/July fixture to competing with the football season will have had an impact on the attendance. I know the die hards will probably disagree, but many people have lost their local Speedway team while still following the sport, but support their local football team too. The combined support of all the tracks left in the UK isn't going to fill a large stadium these days, so the event relies on the casual fan that might make Cardiff their only meeting of the year. There are circa 850000 sports fans that will be attending football matches on the day of the GP. If only 1% of those would have attended Cardiff if it hadn't clashed with following their football team, it would be a significant amount. It's certainly stopped me and 4 others attending in recent years anyway.

Just watched the highlights myself. As you say, very disappointing. The amount of time taken showing the presentation of the trophies and celebrations on the rostrum at the end could have been used to show another 5 or 6 heats!

Well... They did say Jehovah

He doesn't do himself any favours sometimes I must admit. That piece in the Star about him wanting to fight Leon Madsen was cringe worthy to say the least!

Gosh, that's a lot of assumptions to make based on what I wrote! I've always been a Tai supporter. I've followed his career from the start and even bought his book. I've got tattoos myself (not as many as Tai though I must admit) and I don't even know what MMA is so I won't judge him on that either. It seems to be the general tactic these days for people to brand any opinion different to their own as 'hate' motivated but I can assure you that's not the case. As I said, I made an objective opinion based on what I saw. You don't have to hate or dislike someone to think they made an error of judgement you know.

While yes, It's hard to know the motives of anyone who enters the arena at any sports event during play, it's obvious that this guy's motive, while worse for drink, was to gloat & wave his scarf at the opposing fans after the event. He's wearing a tight fitting T shirt, football shorts, trainer socks & trainers, so hardly able to conceal a knife about his person, or brandish one with a scarf wrapped around both wrists. You have to ask yourself, if security had got to the scene before Tai's intervention, would they have have upended the guy from behind in that manner? If the answer's no, then ask yourself why? Don't get me wrong, if I'd have been in that crowd, I'd have laughed & cheered at the spectacle too, so I'm not being all Mr Outraged of Purley here, but being objective, I consider it was a stupid, dangerous & unnecessary thing to do. When you consider the element of surprise and the fact that the guy had his hands in the air, joined together by a scarf, which would affect his ability to break his fall, it could have ended a lot worse. So what was Tai's motivation here? a) This guy could have a weapon and potentially pose a threat to my fellow riders and the public. I need to neutralise this threat ASAP. Or b) I'll teach this guy a lesson & give me mates a good laugh at the same time. Does anyone sincerely believe it was a)?

I'm not a Tai hater, but I can't condone that. In the Johnny Bairstow incident, the protester was carried from the field of play and dropped into the grass beyond the boundary. He was fully aware of what was going on throughout, and would have been able to prepare himself for the short drop onto the grass. Sneaking up behind someone and upending them onto a hard surface in that manner was a stupid and dangerous thing to do. The fan was an idiot but the situation didn't warrant it in my opinion. The victim was a big old unit and would have landed heavily, with little time to react to the situation before hitting the deck. It looked more an act of aggression on Tai's part than containment to me.

I only had the chance to watch it last night, but my thoughts exactly. Even if the exclusion was technically correct, it was at best an ungentlemanly & dangerous move. Holder knew he was there as they were side by side coming off the corner and while I accept that he had pulled clear, he left Zmarzlik nowhere to go. Lambert in heat 16 was clearly faster on the outside, but if Zmarzlik had pulled that move on him, he would have been slaughtered. Instead, he left Lambert room to race. I guess it's the same as it being "boring" if Zmarzlik is dominating the series, but if it was a Brit dominating the series it would be fantastic!

I remember him riding for Poole a year later in 1973. My first year of attending speedway was 1972.

It's a shame that the the controversy has overshadowed the book. I got a copy for Christmas, but don't get much time to read at home, so I've had to wait till my holiday. I read Kelvin Tatum's book first, which I enjoyed, and I'm now about half way through Peter's and thoroughly enjoying the read. The only downside to reading it on my sunbed is that the glue has melted in the binder, and the pages are falling out I wasn't a big PC fan back in the day, as Simmo was my number one man, but both books are a fascinating insight into the lifestyles and careers of these guys. The 70's were more my era, so I can relate to PC's book more, as it brings back fond memories for me. What a life though. Travelling the world and being paid for doing something you love. Makes my life seem so boring!

Thank you, that's kind of what I expected. So as I say, not disproportionate to other hobbies then. I know people who have spent over £10k for something they have to pedal for a weekend hobby. At the end of the day it's a very basic piece of kit. Anyone with any basic grasp of mechanics could strip & rebuild one so the servicing & maintenance costs needn't be prohibitively high. At an entry level too, using a pit bike engined machine for youngsters to get started would probably be cheaper than the combined cost of their iPhones and games consoles!

I must admit, I'm a bit out of touch now as it's been at least 10 years since my son rode at amateur level, and yes, his equipment was second hand and probably filtered down from pro use. Having said that, I seem to remember at the time, you could buy new equipment from JRM (Jawa) and build a basic machine for a reasonable amount. After all there's not much to a single cylinder bike with no gearbox or brakes. It's all the trick bits & specialist tuning that make it unaffordable, which wouldn't be necessary at an amateur level. I don't know if this is still the case? I looked online but the Jawa catalogue I found doesn't show prices anymore like it used to, but would a new basic machine cost any more than what people pay to compete in other amateur motorcycle disciplines like Moto X etc.?

Okay, again, in the literal interpretation of 'past', he hadn't cleared Doyle completely but if it makes you happy, the leading edge of his machine was in front of Doyle's before the point of contact. Doyle blocked the move up the inside on the preceding laps but left the door wide open on this occasion. What was Zmarzlik supposed to do? To say that he went for a gap that wasn't there (and I know you didn't say that) is nonsense, as it clearly was. From that point on Zmarzlik rode the only line he could and made no attempt to move Doyle out. Doyle had the option to change tack with his preferred line taken but chose not to hence the contact. So apart from nitpicking the interpretation & spelling of 'past', what is your point? What did Zmarzlik do wrong? I'm quite prepared to hear someone with an alternative opinion to mine without trying to belittle them. (Disclaimer. This post probably contains spelling or grammatical errors. Read at your own risk)

Please accept my sincere apologies for my grammatical error and any offence it caused you. In hindsight, I can see that this hideous faux Pas completely invalidates the point I was making and would have made it very difficult to understand. Thanks for pointing it out

This type of incident has been discussed many times and as usual people see it different ways. For a long time, the falling rider getting the decision was the default decision by referees, so this is what people expect, but it seems now that the tide is turning a bit. For me, Doyle left Zmarzlik a gap coming off bend 2 that he was inevitably going to take and he was passed. While I agree with the comments saying that Doyle didn't lean in on Zmarzlik, and that he continued on his natural line, was that wise when you know that someone else is already on that line now? Zmarzlik didn't move towards Doyle either, and had nowhere else to go, but Doyle had probably 70% of the track width available to him to avoid the collision. It's racing, and we all want to see close racing, so this type of incident is inevitable unfortunately. It was a racing incident and without prejudice, I think the referee got it right.

Unfortunately, I resolved my technical issue and watched it. It wasn't the best meeting was it? I don't know what happened tbh. My phone wasn't finding my Chromecast for some reason? It's never happened before, but probably best not to try to resolve technical issues when you've just come back from the pub.