waiheke1

Harris is on a 6.8 ish average. He now has to face almost exclusively rival heatleaders. Reslistically then, a six point average means he is performing as you would expect, so assuming five rides youd be hoping for maybe nine at home snd seven away and hes done his job. If he ends up dropping down to second string he will likely clean up, and all of a sudden people will be marvelling at his resurgence in form. Agree he was awful in auckland though.

Aces by 8-10 assuming nielsen is fit.

Have to disagree re cook. If u look at the heats, the only extra point you would have exoected him to get wss besting porsing. But around kl you would have expected him to lose out to schlein in one if their clashes. Dont think you eould expect him to best bjerre or nki so he scored bssically as expected. think 2nd/3rd heatleaders are getting a lot of ill deserved criticism this year, when the factis any maintaining their average are doing very well.

No as they do not earn an official green sheet average. More of an issue will be second strings such as porsing or palm toft who are likely to spend thr whole season at second string, get an inflated average and potentially make themselves unemployable for next season.

Aces by 20 if they are genuine play off contenders.

Yes, but against the weakest two teams in the league. I cant imagine too many repeats of that away from home against the other seven sides. Im not criticizing the bees team, they are my pick for 4th but with weaker reserves id be tipping them for 7th/8th.

Clearly not. But if say a top heavy team like poole went to brum and darcy only scored two points they would probably lose. It wouldnt stop them being play off hopefuls though. garritty being fit has always been essential to coventry s play off hopes as they have a weak-average top five. Today just illustrated thst rather than telling anyone anything new.

i think it will definitely strenthen Lakeside when Bridger moves down. Bech will score ok i think as a third (or second) heat leader, though clearly a drop from his current output. Bridger will beat the reserves, and pick up some points against the second strings. most teams third heat leaders are struggling - Proctor, Hansen, Bridger etc. The only exceptions really are the teams that built with a strong top3, so Poole and KL, and hopefully BV when they start racing. I think too early to panic about Bridger. but it's not watered down if you're a heat leader - it's tougher than last year. It is much easier however if you're a second string.

I don't think that's true at all. The only reason most picked coventry for the top four was their reserve pairing, in particular Garrity, who it was assumed shou;ld outscore opposition reseves most/every meeting home and away. If as you'd expect coventry had outscored the Brum reservces 11-7 rather than vice-versa, they ould have had a six point win tonight. the rest of the team was as expected. Hans is a solid number 1. Harris is an average-weak 2nd heat leader. Hansen is one of the worst third heat leaders in the league. A decent second string pairing, though without a rider likely to perform well when promoted to third heat leader spot. All the top five performed to that assessment tonight. Had Garrity been fit, or been replaced by a guest, then Coventry would have almost certainly won.

Ok fair enough I thought that was what he had said the the star but either I mis read it or misrememebered.

Poole by eight still I reckon, assuming milik has a better night.

Is the thought that darcy will still ride in the next gp (I.e. six weeks out from league racing only?). Would be a real shame for the series if he is forced to miss it and be at such a disadvantage at this early stage.

Is there a reason you didn't post this suggestion in the aftermath of holder knocking nicki pedersen off in the pairs the other night?

Stars by ten I reckon assuming jet lag not impacting too much on nki and bjerre. Lambert to start with a win first time out and finish with five or six?

But if the reason for pulling out is that he has a pre existing booking, made before the u21 date was known, its understand able to honour the existing commitment - especiallyif its in germany where he has done a significant proportion of his riding. The fact that he has asked to be considered next year would indicate not intended as a snub to the event?

Reckon its going to come down to whichever reserve pairing scores the most. I'l go swindon by two.l

gustix - you cant really compare the car speedway with the speedway gp. he gets a dozen car meetings a season, so while there is some track maintenance for each meeting, he's not doing a total track relay before and after an event. He's also not having to pay inscription fees to BSI. So that's the two major costs of hosting the speedway gp gone. I'd imagine that he's at least breaking even on the cars, and surprised if he's not making a profit, though clearly he loves the sport.

Gustix has already apologised repeatedly for being the only speedway fan onbthe planet unaware of that fact. If he were Canadian he could also apokogise for bryan adams but im not sure what else he csn do.

Its not irrelevant. Darcy hasnt ridden in the el for poole since being declared in the line up. Thrrefore no facility is available for him

i think all their efforts to get holder to ride prove is that he is the best replacement available. i don't think it is an acknowledgement of the rules.

Phil - do the FIM offcials pay their own way, or are they paid for too by BSI or Bill B?

bill buckley is a very rich man - google him to find out more

I believe the promoter lost shed loads of money, hence it was one time only.

i don't get congratulated for doing the fundamentals of my job either. in most industries it's considered standard to do a job with a decent degree of competence, and people don't expect platitudes unless they are going above and beyond or doing an exceptional job. But well done to the BSPA anyway.

tbf, the chances of him scoring less than 2 were pretty remote (remember, he had rides scheduled against bunyan and harris) - unless he got injured first time out.