waiheke1

Tbf, I can't understand why people are surprised. This is after all the person who was adamant jerran Hart was in jail a couple of weeks after others had posted that he'd been released.Holder could spend half a season racing for another British club and good old starry would still be denying that holder would even entertain the thought of riding for anyone else

Wow . People really do not get the difference between fact and opinion. No wonder these discussions go round in circles.

I'd be certain that you need two draft riders. Very puzzled at choosing masters and thorssel ahead of pk, unless it's true that pk wanted too much money.

When you mention honours, I assume u mean the wooden spoon?

there will certainly be some anomalies, because i very much doubt the list will have been fully thought through by those responsible for implementing it. However, in terms of what the list should do, it's limit the number of riders with distorted averages a team can have. But, given that PK is apparently not on the list, and Danny King is, it would seem they have taken some random approach, possibly just subjective opinions on who is and isn't a heat leader. Which renders the whole point of the list pretty much obsolete. Either way, if Poole end up with Watt and Holder as their final two signings I don't think anyone can have complaints, and it doesn't look (at thsi stage) like any other team is going to end up with 4 riders who should have been classed as HL. If however Poole name Holder and Shamek/Lindback/Dudek/Vaculik/other toprider as their remaining signings, then the title can be awarded now and the BSPA roundly castigated for their ineptness.

Maybe this is a WHOOSH, but are you serious? The Coventry who could have been champs last year if they had got a strong replacement for Robson? Zengy averaged under 5 as a hl last year I believe. Swindon's number 2 will surely be Morris or batch Of course poole could have the strongest top two if they don't sign watt..

Surely no facility for a rider who' s contract simply ends? Best case guest for 28 days(?) for rider withholding services?

And of course the way Bruce drove under penhall is reminiscent of the way Lee drove him aside on the way to victory a year earlier. A very fine line between hard and dirty.

only if the other teams are rubbish. id say poole aces and swindon will definitely be stronger. coventry look slightly stronger, KL it's too early to tell. still ,a couple of early season home wins and stevebrum will be shouting the champion potential from the roof tops for all of two weeks...

I forgot the reduction. whats the criteria to be elegible for that

TBF, the rationale presented was that it was due to distortion of averages due to heat format. On that basis, the only sensible way to differentiate a HL would be number of meetings ridden as a HL last year (or 2014 if that is the source of the average). therfore Watt shouldn't be aa HL, Buzz should be, and King was marginal either way. If the aim was nothing to do with distorted averages, but was instead to make sure that HL were evenly spread, that changes things. If we take SCB's excellent "weighted averages", then Danny King is nowhere near the top 18 riders (assuming the 18 rider bit is accurate) from last year. Watt was about 22nd, so if you remove Puk, Magic and Ward he is still just outside the 18. Buzz clearly should be a HL, but it is quite possible that Ford has got one over the other promoters by getting them to agree to 6.5 as a HL cut off for riders who weren't in the EL last year - the other promoters have noone to blame but themselves if this is the case. Noting the above, it would seem that Watt shouldn't be classed as a HL under either approach. I have no issues whatsoever if Poole have both Watt and Buzz in their line up. BUT - how confident are people that Watt will be in the Poole team? North tbh would seem a better option based on performances last year, and thats before you factor in the fact he is on a much lower average. Ford is a very canny team builder, and if he has got Buzz in as a second string it would be surprising for him to "waste" that advantage by choosing Watt, when he could get much better options with the available points, especially given that finances would not seem to be as much of an issue as they are for other teams.

Bates finished with 5.58 in the pl, so should be 3.35 (60% of pl average)

Can I just point out that plenty of countries have play offs to determine their domestic league champions. Australia, nz, USA for starters. All leagues where there is no relegation, no European football to play for, and hence the need for something else to make matches meaningful. Why do you think playoffs are used for the final promotion spot in England?

Surely you would need 16 Brits excluding reserves? Personally I would say minimum three brits (Inc reserves).

It also mentions "assessed" which wouldn't apply to buzz?

Why combine 14 and 15? It should be aligned with the rolling averages, otherwise the concept makes no sense. I agree that in this instance poole are not to blame, I blame the promoters who bafflingly vote in rules which seem to favour poole and no one else. And if buzz is not on list but watt is, then assuming watt is named in poole side, then they haven't really gained.

Really? Care to quote even one post to substantiate that claim?

Really, you're smarter than that skidder. That's rp type logic.Buzzs average is based on 2014, hence what position he rode in 14 is relevant. Watt's average is from 15, hence where he rode in 14 is irrelevant I'd add that if a rider rode here last in 13 their average is not directly comparable Exactly. And he stated that on the bsf on the Coventry thread

Using that logic, Newman should be a hl as he averaged more than watt....Yes you do

but in 2014 the same heat format was used, so makes no sense for him (or any other such rider) not to be classed as a HL. It's an utter farce, and to be clear i don't blame Poole, but all the other idiots who approved this. The only thing which would balance it out is if Poole sign Watt, as IMHO he should not be on a HL list.

Wheras in speedway riders never miss meetings during the normal season? In any case, if we are talking rugby, the Super15 never has players missing due to international commitments. Yet that uses play offs. NPC? The same. Rugby League. NRL - hmm the same. the point Oldace is making is that it would be better the sport was improved and rebranded, to make it attractive to crowds of 5000 youngsters rather than 500 oldies. If those oldies kept attending, and I'm sure you would Sid, then that's a bonus. But a sport with a very small core support base needs to look for ways to make it more attractive to a much larger audience, rather than cater to an unsustainably low core customer base. yet the teams who finish 5th and 6th are generally in the hunt for a play off spot until the end of the season, ensuring that they too have higher gates than they would have done otherwise. Fact is that a much greater proportion of matches have meaning, and hence higher crowds.

Ditto. My favourite ever season was 1982 when Aces won the BL (I was 4). I replayed that season endlessly as a kid on the "speedway scene" board game. Consequently even now I can tell you to the nearest 0.5 what average pretty much any BL rider had that season. I think when you're a kid madly into a sport, you're probably more obsessive about sports stats than at any other time in your life. When you get older, you don't have the time!

The people who say its about 4 blokes going round a track, are the same ones who say crowds are drawn by the racing, and are the same ones who advocate abolishing the play offs. Basically the hard core speedway fan who will go whatever, and prefer things as they were 40 years ago.Which would be fine, but each el team has maybe 500 such people, and that is not sufficient to sustain a viable business.

except your reserves will quickly put 3 points on their averages between them, so after 4 meetings you'll no longer have any points to play with, and will only be able to replace Woryna with a rider on a lower average...

Jamrog and Krcmar? Jerran Hart?