Rob Lee

Animals eat other animals. It's natural and it's called the food chain - we just happen to be at the top of the food chain. Should we try to stop owls eating mice, lions eating antelopes etc? If birds and other little creatures didn't eat insects (they are God's creatures too), there'd be much less healthy grain for the vegans to eat.

Thanks

Just thought I'd have a quick look to see how Swindon's new stadium was coming along, but I seem to have stumbled onto a Belle Vue slanging match thread.

What?? Name another sport where a competitor can represent two different teams in the same week.

Grand Central has hit the nail on the head. If you don't break the tapes then it's a fair start. Otherwise, what is the point of the tapes????

Wasn't thinking just of 5-1s against them, but how many times between them they failed to beat an opponent, whether riding together or not.

Not saying that Harris & Andersen are not a strong top two when they both turn up and dial their bikes in properly, but maybe one of the forum statisticians could work out which top pairing had the most 3rds & last places between them......? Might be the same two.

On the subject of porcine aviation, another way to reduce engine costs would be for the promoters to pay the riders only what the sport can afford, so the riders wouldn't have the money to spend on trick engines. Then maybe admission prices could be reduced or at least pegged and attendances might go up. If the GP riders didn't like that, tough. The GP has already emasculated team / league speedway in this country.

Spot on. A few people have said it in different ways in this topic, but it doesn't matter where the engine comes from or how cheap it is to buy, riders will understandably tweak it to try & get an advantage, then the costs will spiral. The only way to cap costs is to have a standard engine with a ban on any mods (for league racing - you'd have to have more freedom for GP riders). Ideally, each track would have a stock of engines and they'd be allocated at random at the start of a meeting. Ideally.................was that a pig that just fluttered by? Happy new year

Ta. Makes sense as long as it only applies to EL 2nd strings.

Admittedly my arithmetic ain't what it used to be (fades with age), but those figures didn't look right, so I got out the calculator. 1/1.4 = 0.7142 and 1/0.6 = 1.666. So there are different conversion factors depending whether you are going up or down. Is it deliberate (if so what's the logic), or is it dodgy accounting or maybe just in the best interests of British Speedway?

I wasn't aiming a jibe at anyone, I was trying to make a constructive suggestion. The info is only out of date to anyone who has read it on this forum. It's no more out of date than last week's results, which everyone will have seen on one website or another, long before SS is printed. Journalists make interesting stories out of "old" news all the time, and if well written they make a very good read. Anyway, it's dry today, back to the garden with the late, great Gerry Rafferty in my earphones. I'll follow this thread with interest. My wife was right, I should never have got involved, I can't keep up with the regular forumistas. Y'all have a nice day

It's raining here, can't get out into the garden, so I might as well get sucked into this (braving the scornful looks of my wife, who thinks all forums (fora?) are daft). Philip, you've reported some very interesting background stuff here - why not put it in the magazine? From the above, it sounds as if you are the Rupert Murdoch of speedway publishing. He keeps lots of dogs but apparently makes sure they all bark to his tune. Apologies to the staff of SS, they are not dogs I'm sure.

Blimey !! Didn't expect all this. As an occasional viewer and even more occasional poster (is that the right term?), I started this on impulse really, having shelled out my £2-odd or whatever for 5 minutes reading. Won't be buying it again, but I wonder if P Rising can tell us non-readers whether there is any hint in the next issue of the fact that Poole's track prep on Monday 6 Oct has caused huge controversey and debate among the regulars on this forum?

I bought the Star today for the first time in years, and it reminded me of that brilliant Gerry Rafferty song. I thought that with all the controversy over the Poole semi and the Greaves / Sarjeant / Phillips fracas, they might have something to get their teeth into. Silly me !! Controversy, what controversy? Just a brief report that the Poole match was off and nothing on the outcome of the SCB investigation. I remember now why I stopped my subscription years ago. They don't report anything, just dish out the BSPA line and keep their heads firmly in the sand.

Team riding seems to be a lost art. Never saw PC & Morton, but it was worth the price of admission just to see either Hamill & Hancock and Sam & Ronnie, who could pull it off every match. The best one-off team riding feat I ever saw was at Brandon sometime around 1990-ish, with a young Peter Karlsson guesting for the Bees shepherding home an even younger Andy Meredith for a 5-1 after Meredith did one of his amazing starts. The time must have been a few seconds outside the track record. Come to think of it, I've got it on video somewhere. Wonder if the old VCR still works....?

A bit of Christmas nostalgia - the following article from 1963 was re-printed in our local newspaper last week: ...."The Young Liberals met a man who told them "I doubt if the Beatles would have done as well as I did in my day". He was Jack Parker, the British Speedway champion for seven successive years and now a Leamington insurance broker. He said at one time he received 150 fan letters in one post, and it often took him three quarters of an hour to get from his dressing room to his car........". Fings ain't wot they used to be. Can we get Tai Woffinden to address the next Liberal Party conference ?? Or maybe all the moaners on the forum should start writing more fan letters instead.

Why the obsession with 15 or 13 heats? How about 18? I seem to remember 8-man teams and 18 heats for a few seasons in the nineties - might have been earlier (or later!), memory fades with age..... More heats for your money and no second rate second halves. I believe 18 heats could also work with 6 man teams, which might also alleviate the shortage of quality riders.