waiheke1

Can't believe anyone is complaining about the track. Racing was excellent, so to produce a surface like that given the build up deserves full credit. That said the only person complaining also suggested the riders should have had pre meeting practice - when it was pelting with rain?!?

Tai's bikes look miles quicker than anybody else's How the ref didn't exclude kildermand for his first bend fall I don't know. Don't understand people having a go at Harris, he again performed as you'd expect. Excellent meeting I thought given the rain. Barring injury hard to see past a tai-nicki 1-2 come end of year, with Greg/puk joining them in the podium. Current top 8 look like being top 8 come end of year I would say

But the rules say he should be a 3

Except that crystal meth is hideously addictive and soon "choice" doesn't come into play. I can't think of a more destructive drug.(though clearly more widely used drugs like alcohol result in more overall impact to society).

Kudos to the track team.not a classic but decent amount of passing which is surely an achievement given the rain beforehand

The wildcard s by definition are for riders who did not qualify for the series via either of the other methods. I fail to see your logic in asserting that a rider who failed to take part in qualifiers should be ineligible.I presume u also feel that Emil, lagutas, Lambert etc. Should be ineligible?

No

Link?

Yes that's why crump is but not loram

Yep, hopefully Lindback and Pawlicki jnr both make it through the GP challenge. would be nice if Kildermand could make top 8. If a Brit is going to be given a wildcard, i reckon it would be Lambert rather than Harris, though in reality would probably be a season or two too early. I'd be happy enough to see Harris make top 3 in the Challenge though well, this thread seems to have somehow got off topic, and people are talking about Darcy someone. Have pulled out my old 80s rankings, and by my reckoning, only 5 NL riders were in 1982 were in the world's top 100 riders (Joe Owen the highest ranked at 55th), then Wigg, Lawson, Hunter and Dixon). I thought initially that this would reinforce the view that the NL was of a generally mediocre standard. But then I looked at the latest 2015 Dolgin rankings, and saw that he has assessed 1600 riders who have ridden competitive meetings somewhere in the world in the last two years. Assuming in 1982 that even 75% of this number rode, that gives 1200 riders, of whom you could argue that those ranked say 400-800th in the world might be mediocre. Most NL riders (the main body of the team at least) would rank higher than that - so I've changed my mind, they may have been mediocre by British standards, but by world standards they were pretty good!

Fair enough I stand corrected. Though tbh still not sure how relevant Peter Cravens win in 1955 is to the aces ability to bring through young riders in 2015.

So which of Lee woffy havvy or Williams were aces riders when they became world champs? I make them all amongst the last nine British born world champs

There are FOUR wildcards. I think those advocating one for ward would also agree that hampel and Emil deserve one - for me those are the three "certainties" assuming they want one, and there are not three Aussies/poles already qualified.In the unlikely event that there are 3 Aussies already I would guess ward misses out. Same for hampel in the more likely scenario that 3 poles are already in. Fwiw I'd give them wildcards even if it meant 4 from a nation

I don't think it was tbh. A ban to end of Jan would have been enough to rule him out of the qualifiers by missing the Aussie champs.While the ban he got has him back in time for a wildcard for thegp challenge - fim would surely have banned him til after that if they wanted to make sure he couldn't qualify.

Is that stat right? Lee Havelock woffy and Williams weren't aces? And out of the last four only j crump, so one in the last 37 years.

Not sure a good TAC move at all. Give away 2 points (assuming roynon woild have finished 3rd)to stop aces gaining a max three points. And of course as it turned out aces wouldn't have been able to use it as josh won the heat anyway

Will be a good test for Lambert riding as a hl

Highly recommend this book to any speedway fan. That price is a bargain

And he was actually used to REPLACE roynon, not even a case of the team manager just doing nothing. As you say it is common, and very odd.

Prob wont make any difference to the result but why was Morris used in heat nine?

Heat leaders can appear in "protected" heats as an RR, so I'm not convinced you are correct that they would not be allowed as TAC subs in such heats. Would be just like the old heat 8s. And of course even getting a 3-3 in heat 9 would be a four point swing, so a bigger gain than the 3 extra Freddie got.

Though aces have three home meetings in hand on Swindon. Would expect aces to collect at least as many points from those as Swindon will from their away meetings in hand.

Assuming Coventry finish top, who will u pick for the playoffs? Aces, kl or try to get poole out of the way in the semis?

Of course if the old TAC sub rules were in place wolves would probably have won by six points, by gaining an 8 pt swing in the preceding race rather than a 3 pt gain via the golden double

Get rid of bjerre. And watch one of your rivals sign him up. On a sub 7 average earned from the heat leader spot he would strengthen the aces (for josh) or poole (for north). Would he fit at coventry for robson?