AFCB Wildcat

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.

I'm probably being stupid, but I've done that and bought the Poole v Plymouth stream and I'm not seeing a cast option to watch it on my TV? I had no issues last season, the cast icon was on the viewing window on my phone so I Chromecast it but it's not there now, so what am I doing wrong? Ignore above! Seemed it was my Chromecast device. I unplugged it and re booted it and all is good

Is this still the case? If so when? I had heard that a while ago, but I downloaded it only a week or so a go hoping to be able to use it this season.

I didn't know that either but after you said, I found this. https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/sport/speedway/mayor-rugby-tony-gillias-gets-7207324

For me, as an armchair viewer now since the demise of Weymouth & more recently Eastbourne I have to say that the Premier league grand final was the highlight. As a neutral, I didn't favour either team. I was delighted for Belle Vue to end their drought but gutted for Sheffield who certainly didn't get the rub of the green! I thought the racing was excellent with all riders giving 100% and putting it on the line for a trophy that we are lead to believe no one cares about. I thought Belle Vue were fortunate to take such a big lead from the first leg as the scoreline I felt didn't reflect the closeness of the racing on the track and it was a shame it was ultimately decided by incidents rather than racing, but overall I thought it was an excellent advertisement for the sport. As others have said BSN has been another major plus. It's been great to be able to watch Championship & NDL fixtures rather than the same teams all the time on Eurosport. I really hope it's been a success financially and continues.

That sounds a little bit extreme .... For compromise, maybe Poole would agree to scratch the scores from the first 7 heats of the first leg as a good will gesture?

I have a second generation Chromecast which is quite old now and so far it's been seamless. The specification of the phone & TV are not factors as long as the HDMI port on the TV support the Chromecast requirements. I don't know how you'd know but all I can say is that I use it on an older TV which isn't even smart and it's fine. Steve is referring to screen mirroring so in that case the TV & phone specifications are vitally important. WiFi quality is obviously important whatever way you watch a stream. Screen mirroring is establishing a connection between your phone and the TV to duplicate whatever is on your phone screen onto your TV screen so processing speed / memory of phone will be a factor and it will use wi-fi capacity too maintaining the connection between the phone & TV. Chromecast is a completely different process because once you have connected to it, the Chromecast is now hosting the stream and projecting it directly onto your TV screen through the HDMI port and the phone is no longer part of the process apart from as a remote control so less demanding on WiFi. No need to worry about sizing the picture to the TV screen, it's instantly full screen. You can have the phone on standby or use it for other applications without affecting the stream. I believe you can cast directly to some smart TV's without a Chromecast device but mines a bit hit and miss as to whether it appears in the cast devices list and it doesn't on BSN but the Chromecast does.

Yes it is. I had to use this option on Glasgow streams as it seems there weren't permissions to cast. I've only got a basic cheapy phone and it couldn't cope so I had to use my wife's top end phone and even then it wasn't ideal. The beauty of using a Chromecast device is that you only need your phone to log on to BSN and start the broadcast. After you have selected the Chromecast device from your casting options, the stream goes directly from your WIFI to the Chromecast device which is plugged into an HDMI port on the TV and your phone is then basically redundant except to use as a remote control through the Google Home app. I've only got cheap equipment but it works fine even in my summer house at the bottom of the garden which only has a basic TV which isn't even smart. It just needs HDMI ports. Once you have paired the Chromecast to your WiFi on initial setup, you can just put it in any TV in the house without any further setting up. For an outlay of £20 for an older version of Chromecast and any TV with an HDMI port the jobs a good 'un. It works for me anyway. Perhaps others would like to share what works for them as it might help others that are struggling?

Out of interest, how so? My phone is Android and I just start the broadcast on my phone and the cast symbol is at the bottom of the video window. I just touch on that and the list of available devices pops up, I select my Chromecast and it's instantly on my TV so I can't see how much simpler it can be? You are using the Chromecast and not the screen mirroring option? That's a different thing and is a faff!

'Dean Court' please? I refuse to call it the 'V' word!!

I'm not that tech savvy but the main advantage of BSN over some of the club streams for me is that it gives me the option to Chromecast to my TV. When we bought our TV a good few years ago it was all a bit of a minefield as smart TV'S varied considerably as to how smart they were and I didn't want to spend a fortune so the salesman recommended buying a Google Chromecast which at the time was about £30 but I think you can get them cheaper now. It's been worth every penny and so easy to use. I just start the stream on my phone and click on the 'cast' icon and the Chromecast which is plugged into the back of the TV takes over the stream and it's just the same as watching a TV broadcast. I don't even need to touch the telly, it instantly comes on the screen as soon as the cast option is selected. My wife won a Firestick which I believe is similar but I can't get on with that! Chromecast is simplicity itself though. I'm sure you can cast from a laptop too although I haven't got one so never tried. I can only echo what others have said in praising BSN though. I can't justify a full subscription as I can rarely watch the live events but I quite often buy to watch on catch-up which is cheaper and the odd weekend live fixture if I'm home.

I've no prejudice against the idea in terms of noise or smell but I'm not seeing any cost benefit to it as far as bringing riders into the sport. The problem with the idea of making the NDL electric only is that NDL riders currently double up as rising stars or second strings in the higher leagues, so would now need 2 sets of kit, adding more expensive rather than reducing it. At entry level (i.e youth or amateur) Speedway is not an expensive sport to enter. A pit bike engined laydown can be purchased a fraction of the cost of one of these electric bikes and they are certainly quick enough to establish if you are capable of progressing in the sport. Around the smaller training tracks like Lydd, I've seen them post times similar to the 500's. The biggest problem in developing riders currently, is track time and availability. If these electric bikes allowed for more venues to operate structured training programs which are not possible now because of noise curfews then it would be a good thing.