AFCB Wildcat

Yeah, that was the last time that I went. I'd read on here that cheap tickets were always available on the day so didn't book in advance as usual but the cheapest ones they had were £50 or more, I can't remember exactly and it cost me £250 or so to get my family in. As you say, obviously rubbish!

Indeed and not least going up against the start of the Football season on a match day. I know there are a lot of football haters on here but unfortunately, a good percentage of the Cardiff crowd are casual supporters and not die hard speedway fans. Many have lost their local teams and make Cardiff their only speedway meeting of the year but regularly support a football team. Having checked average football match attendance figures it would appear that on average, over 750,000 fans attend a full programme of matches over the 4 divisions on a Saturday. A small percentage of those who might otherwise have otherwise gone to Cardiff if it was in June or July like it used to be is a big impact on the attendance figure.

I had a strong feeling it was going to be his night too. I stayed away from the result as I was in Manchester till Sunday so couldn't watch it till I got home. My daughter messaged me Saturday and asked me if I wanted her to put a bet on for me as it's my one wager of the year. When I got home she asked if I'd seen the result so I suspected he'd come through for me but as you say, the WAY he won. Wow! Conditions catching out far more experienced riders but he nailed it.

Oh I am certainly celebrating. Dan's achievement is remarkable in that he won despite me having bet on him. It's normally the kiss of death for a rider as I've never had a winner before. Unfortunately I wasn't there this year to see it as my grandson wanted to go to football instead but Dan paid for my day, and some

Cardiff City are home to Birmingham. It's a lunchtime kick off but the city is normally busy after football with post match drinkies etc. I've also read that there is cricket. The Welsh Fire against oval invincibles in the hundred, whatever that is? There's also a couple of events and an evening concert at Cardiff castle apparently. Bloody stupid, having the GP in the football season IMO. I'm going to miss this one as I'll be at the Etihad watching Bournemouth get battered. I'd rather go to speedway to be honest but it's my grandson's first (and probably only) Premier League season and he wouldn't forgive me if I didn't take him

Well I don't intend to find out. I stopped going when they started issuing those fangled printed paper tickets instead of a parchment scroll, handwritten in olde English with a proper quill pen

From reading some of the views expressed on here, you'd of thought that the only purpose of this meeting was to find a wildcard rider for the Cardiff GP when it was predominantly about winning the National title. Dan Bewley is already in the GP so was he chasing an impossible win from the off?? Being a wildcard in a single GP will be soon forgotten but having your name on the national trophy with all the greats that have won it before puts you in a hall of fame and that's what it should be all about. I really don't see how anybody can say that Adam's wildcard is tainted when the other option was to elect someone as National champion off the back of a ballot after only 3 rides completed . In my opinion that would have been a bigger farce and that name on the trophy would certainly have been tainted. In the circumstances I think they made the right call. Nobody deserved to be called British champion that night and it's correct that it is being re run. I also believe it's correct that Adam, as current British champion should be able to take the wildcard ride that he was denied by Covid as his win was worthy. By all means criticise the organisation for putting this event on so close to the GP without a contingency plan for this scenario but to suggest that Adam should forfeit his place to someone who won nothing is in my opinion ridiculous.

But the field for the 2023 GP series is decided in 2022 so what's the difference? If the Cardiff GP had been in its normal June to early July slot it would have been done by now. Surely it's better to have the British final at the end of the domestic season giving an option to rearrange if weather intervenes rather than so close to the GP but event shouldn't just be about a wildcard place in a GP anyway.

Has it officially been said that the winner of the rearranged British final will not be wildcard for next year's GP? As long as they arrange next year's British final for a date after the GP and the winner qualifies for the next one does it matter?

I used the service for the first time last night. I'm unable to watch live Speedway in the week due to work commitments and all the weekend tracks are the other end of the country. I don't get custody of the remote control until the wife has gone to bed so I bought the Edinburgh v Poole match to watch on catch up as I hadn't looked up the result. It all worked a treat for me. I guess all the live stream glitches are sorted for on demand and I thought the whole production was decent for what cost little more than a pint at the pub. No problem with Chromecast either which I've had with some of the club streams so able to watch on TV. Same again for Berwick tonight I think. Will retire to my summer house with a pack of Stella, what's not to like? (don't mention the score!)

Yes the size of trees growing out of terraces struck me too. I've seen that on those Abandoned Engineering programmes as well. Trees growing though the floors of abandoned buildings where you wouldn't expect them to be able to grow. It's amazing how nature takes hold again when humans aren't there.

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/20188101.ringwood-raceway-matchams-close-motorsport/

I was surprised to read Rory Shlein's comments in this week's Star regarding the Madsen - Michelson incident where he believes the referee got it badly wrong. "Leon complained he was being leaned on. Well if you're going to slam into someone coming of the corner you should expect a bit of leaning back. It's grand Prix racing" He then goes on to say that Madsen made contact & was the aggressor. Seems a bit of a tainted view to me, and certainly not how I saw it. We've seen lots of aggressive moves in GP where riders have barged through and moved their opponent right to the fence but I can't see how Madsen 'slammed' into Michelson here. From half way round the first corner Madsen had clear track in front of him and hugs the kerb as he exits and passes Michelson. From that point he has clear track in front of him and doesn't ride an unnatural line or squeeze Michelson who has plenty of room outside of him. Also Madsen didn't "complain" he was being leaned on, he was merely saying that he wasn't to blame for the contact. A racing incident where it was hard to apportion blame yes, but I think the referee got it right in this instance and even if you disagree he certainly didn't get it 'badly' wrong! I take it Rory doesn't like Leon?

I went to Poole regularly in the 70's but not again until comparetively recently so I didn't see when or what changed. Poole Town were still at the stadium when I went and the dog track is still as I remember it, so what changed? Were the dog & speedway tracks widened making the centre green too small for the football pitch? I'm guessing the pitch used to meet the regulation minimum size back in the day?

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding what your saying, but is the stadium site big enough to accommodate even a small football stadium and a housing development? The trend these days seems to be moving sports stadiums out of town centres and in into brown field sites or the back of an industrial estate thus leaving the more valuable land for housing.

Yes Lew used to run training schools at Weymouth but as you say not at the time my lad started. We did get a couple of practice days in at Weymouth though before it closed down completely but little in the way of tuition. It was just pay your money and queue at the pit gate. Interestingly though, my lads first 500 was a Jawa 898 which had been converted to a laydown by Lew Coffin. The Iwade set up is a great facility and I always wondered why the bigger clubs didn't support it more. I understand that the big clubs don't always have access to their own stadiums except for on race nights but If amateur clubs can hire training tracks to run meetings then why couldn't the bigger clubs hire them to run junior leagues etc with riders on hand for tuition etc? I keep hearing how expensive it is to get into speedway but really it isn't at grassroots level. You don't have to spend a fortune to find out if you're good enough to pursue it seriously.

I had the same experience as you. When my son took an interest in riding we contacted our local track (Poole) to enquire how he could get started and where he could receive training and they couldn't offer any advice except that they thought Reading had training sessions (at the time) but you would need all your own equipment. That's a big investment to make to find out it's not for you after a couple of outings. I only later found out through a work colleague who did amateur speedway about Sittingbourne (Iwade) where we could hire equipment and get training initially. After that I spent a lot of time driving lots of miles to amateur events or practice days where you just queue up for track time. I was disappointed that a major club couldn't even point us in the right direction. I think if there were more domestic riders who were a major force on the world stage like in the past it would possibly generate more interest.

I went to the Birmingham meeting on Sunday and there were lots of empty seats in the stand. I don't think you need to worry too much about being at the front either because the seats aren't the conventional plastic chairs, they are benches on top of quite steep terracing. We took our 10 year old grandson and there were much smaller children next to us sat at the back and they had a perfect view.

I believe Dean Park is being used by Bournemouth University and a couple of local teams too at the moment but as you say, due to its location it's a developers dream. I'm not a cricket fan but it's quite close to me and back in the day before all day opening, when it hosted county cricket it was the 'go to' place when my local pub called time in the afternoon because the beer tent was open!

Ah right fair enough. Yes I know the starts are ripped up for grip but just looked particularly heavy to me, but as I say it's been a long time away for me and for some reason I've always watched my speedway from the back straight before so not had such a close view of the start line. The atmosphere used to be so much better on the old terracing where that awful glass stand is now. I know it was built for the dogs but who wants to watch speedway from indoors? I agree100% with everything else you say regarding the landlords. I just wonder though how commited BCP council really are to maintaining this prime location as a sporting facility. The Speedway alone isn't enough to justify it and there's no shortage of all weather 5 aside pitches etc in the area, so with Poole Towns complicated position making a return to the stadium unlikely I don't know what else would work? I know there are covenants supposedly in place protecting it's use as sporting facility but the ones protecting the land gifted to Bournemouth football club by the Cooper Dean estate soon disappeared when they wanted to sell it to build houses on it, before then selling the stadium to property investors.

As I've said, this was my first meeting at Wimborne road for a very long time so I didn't know what to expect although I'd read about the ongoing track problems on the forum. When we arrived at about 4:15 the starting gate looked like a potato field and the bends looked a bit patchy to me. I'm no expert on track prep & as I said, a bit out of touch, but after reading on here about problems with lack of shale on the track and the lack of availability of fresh material, I was surprised to see the tractor removing material from the area where the hole appeared and dumping it on the infield before the start of the meeting. To be fair, after the track work following the incident, there didn't seem to be any more issues. The sun was shining & there was a stiff drying breeze so inevitably it was going to get dusty but it wasn't that bad. I've seen much worse. The attendance I thought was a bit disappointing and the racing wasn't that exciting unfortunately but I'll give it another go on Friday weather permitting. I found Matt's interview a little concerning. It kinda reiterated my views on the situation. The Stadium in such a prime town centre location cannot be sustained by Speedway alone and the situation with the landlords mean some worrying times ahead I think. It's such a shame because it's location is its biggest asset in my opinion. We had a nice afternoon in town having a few drinks & a bite to eat before the short walk to the stadium. I really hope for a positive outcome but I view the current situation as being very concerning. Especially with the problems with speedway as a whole at the moment.

Where did that big pile of shale dumped on the grass by the tractor before the start come from. Did that cause the hole? It's right by the area they're working on.

No I didn't know that so 2 in a week after a long absence, thank you

Hopefully the track will be okay. I'm really looking forward to this as it's my first time seeing the Pirates at home for over 15 years. I've only been able to watch league speedway at Lakeside & Eastbourne since the demise of Weymouth as they were weekend tracks but now that unfortunately they are no longer options I hope it's a bumper crowd & that Poole run some more weekend fixtures in future.

Due to working night shifts for the last 16 years and thus only able to do weekend fixtures, this will be my first visit to Wimborne road since the demise of the Buccaneers so advice would be appreciated. I'm obviously a bit out of touch on how things work these days. Can you buy e tickets online and do they take card payments on the gate? I don't do cash! Also with the stadium operation problems, have the catering issues been resolved for food & drinks and is there a bar? How early should I arrive before tapes up to get a decent seat in the stand. I'm assuming it's first come first served rather than allocated seats? TIA