waiheke1

It was my 2nd favourite season, behind the 82 title winning season. As you say great racing, stonking home wins, the emergence of Andy smith and the world pairs/blrc triumphs. I recall the 84 overseas final being a cracking meeting too, though sadly lacking mort and PC

Well, It makes sense that you could borrow to buy an asset, but not be able to make a business case to simply outlay 100k. Not saying he could, but it is feasible.

Yep - two occasions where they went with r/r and Barry Ayres as replacements, and won both comfortably.And of course they scored 61 against Wimbledon with the duo missing as well (covered that time by rr and Sanders I believe) What was a real shock after their phenomenal home form all season was getting thumped at Hyde rd by ipswich in the ko cup final. Mort didn't win a race, Courtney blew his engine in his first ride and didn't take any further part , as 12 point thumping from a side they had scored 53 (?)against in the league.

Beating a heathens side containing king gundersen Collins and grahame 51-27 was pretty satisfying. And of course the famous 64-14 win over eastborne.

Was Sam Nicolaisen (sp) the shortest ever bl rider?

Id say he may squeeze into the top 10.no way hecwill outscore the likes of Klindt bates huckenbeck Allen Sargent etc.

Yep agree with all that. At one point every rider was averaging over 7. Is that the only season the world pairs champs have spearheaded the same bl side?

Aces were defending bl champs in 83, had largely the same team (mcmillan and Ravn out for smith and mckinna) and were good enough to finish 5th. But Cradley absolutely spanked them at Hyde rd 29-49, by far the biggest home defeat I witnessed.

Tatum just ahead of Wigg imo, based purely on speedway. The two best brits of the mid-late 80s.

5 runners up medals, Hans Nielsen has 6! 3 of crumps behind t rick (the other 2 behind nicki). Hans finished behind gundersen for 3 of his and t rick for one of the others.

KK, Lambert, Harris, Bewley, Smith, Fricke, J Holder, Lebedevs, Garritty, plenty of riders I would look forward to seeing race. Add to tgat any meeting at the NSS. And looking forward to seeing top flight action at Somerset. My concern is more that the change in heat format will mean the racing isn't as good as last year.

One of the top 20 riders of all time.A more pertinent question to this thread would be: is Mason Wear one of the top 10 post war Brits?

I'm confused. Is that Mike Bast or Bast Bros Weeding? It can be awfully tricky to differentiate between the riders name and the sponsors name? Could anyone shed some light on this topic?

I'm more concerned that he left buzz burrows, Mike bast and Barry butterworth off his list!

I thought it was the opposite and he paid some riders (including Simmons?) to let him beat them in the British final in 84? Or he paid Simmons to pull out of the British final so he got promoted from reserve spot? Think must be the latter aa I see Simmons didn't ride in the British final and I'm pretty sure hexwas involved (and suspended).

Gavan still saying poole have a weak top 3!?! I'd say KL have clearly the strongest, then a toss up between wolves and poole for the next strongest (kk/Andersen > lindgren/Thorssel buy Masters > kurtz). Probably Wolves edge it, but none of the other 6 sides come close imo.

Swindon?

Poole Kl Wolves Rye house Coventry Aces Swindon Somerset Leicester

A tad hypocritical given your complaints when anyone takes one of "your" threads off topic. Was there a reason why you didn't at least do Sidney the courtesy of giving your thoughts on the thread's question before taking it down a different path? Fwiw I don't think anyone would dispute your assertion. A side with the likes of Craven Mauger Fundin parker j crump peter collins Crang would be unbeatable.

Yes, which as Salty said is a different topic to tgat raised by Sidney. An interesting Topic to discuss, but nonetheless not what the OP asked.

Mauger was better than gundersen by a point. Cradley reserves clearly stronger - Ravn made the world final as reserve and averaged close to 8? Sjosten and a young PC maybe having the edge over Wigg and King? But Grahame/Phil Collins clearly stronger than Pusey/Wilkinson. Cradley to edge it 40-38 I reckon.

Ok but surely it is implicit that that is within the team building rules? Why would you swap cook for batch if it meant you had an illegal team?Edit: gordon Bennett has already posted the same thing.

Yes I read his post. And I agree with him.You'd have had to go cook and a 2 pointer instead of batch and huckenbeck. Which would have left 2 x 2 pointers army reserve. Batch has far more potential to improve his average than cook/fricke and huckenbeck should hold his average. So I agree with Gordon Bennett that most km fans wod rather the combo they have gone with.

Hardly a direct comparison, they are on nearly a 3 point higher average! Would have meant a totally different kl line up, I'd assume it would have been for Leicester not kl?

Three worst: 1. Hyde rd closing 2. Darcy's career ending injuries 3. Nz gp discontinued after 3 seasons Best: 1. Aces win the bl in 1982 2. Speedway gp comes to nz 2012-2014 3. PC and mort win the world pairs in 1984.