E I Addio

If Jason Crump, born in Britain was to choose to race as a Brit people wouldn't care how much he loved Australia he would still be celebrated as a British World Champion. Unlikely Tai will ever be World Champion but if he was all the critics would fall over themselves to see him as a British World Champion.

No, never ever said it was superb. but it is light years better than in the Ronnie Russell days, and not as bad as the chip-on the shoulder brigade who don't like Jon Cook like to pretend, and a number of independent posters who get around a lot of tracks share my view. The bottom line, that you can't get round I that it is not the Lakeside promotion that is talking about closure it is Peterboro's so Cook and Douglas must be doing something right. However much you chip away at other clubs it is not going to improve Panthers chances of getting bigger crowds. Try growing up a bit and think about how lucky you are to have a promoter that is keeping your club a float rather than wishing failure on other clubs (which in Lakesides case ain't gonna happen in the foreseeable) ....and some don't know the difference between constructive debate and drivel. I don't know quite how to break this to you but its a free country and nobody forces you to go to any speedway track you don't like so if you don't like Lakeside, fine, don't go. Nobody cares if you don't go and nobody cares why you don't go. The regular fans will still go however much you vent your spleen on the subject. Might be a good idea if instead you go to a séance and try to get in touch with the living.

Computer upgrade and new e-mail address meant starting again from scratch. Not a big deal Very similar reason to Bomo changing to Bomo 1 or whatever it was and one or two others changing user names.. Took about three goes to get back on because the mods seemed to think it was your mate KKS/JJR/UNCLE TOM COBBLY coming back under another name and I seemed to keep getting immediate bans. Already explained on another thread for those that bothered to read it. Try to keep up.

That is true. I think it all started back in Peter Thorogood's time as promoter when there was not much money and he had a lot of clay mixed in the material to save money on having much dirt on the track, because in those days there really wasn't much money. Then when Ronnie took over he continued with that policy which really wasn't good enough for top league racing and to be honest I thought it was dire and couldn't be bothered with it myself in those days. It is much different since Stuart Douglas took over, especially the last 3 or 4 years, and the riders, especially Dave Watt seem to have some input these days. There is no doubt the crowds are much higher than they were in Ronnie's day which is a reflection of the racing. Bottom line is that it is as reasonably sound financially as you are ever likely to get these days and speedway needs every club it can get to stay open so I don't see why people have to knock it, or Eastbourne for that matter. Unfortunately we always get the puerile remarks from the attention seeking KKS/blupanthe rcamp

I don't think it works like that. It is a BSPA event rather than a Swindon promotion, so there would be no bidding process and the BSPA run the meeting not Swindon Speedway. Although Swindon Speedway rightly get a bit of kudos and credit for their track being used for a prestigious event I don't think they pocket all the profits, which go to the BSPA.

Oh dear, more ducking and diving from the limited concentration span of the KKS stable. First is the claim that crowds are down because of small tracks, then crowds are small at Peterborough because Lakeside and Eastbourne suffered big defeats there, now Sky are puling out because of it and Ward and Holder are moaning about it. The weakness in all that is that it is not domestic speedway but the GP circus that is most immediately under threat from Sky and that is mostly on big tracks apart from Cardiff of course which is one of the small tracks you despise and we have all seen the tiny crowds are poor racing they get there. With regard to Sky the plain fact is that you haven't got any more idea than the rest of us what their intentions are and are just guessing. Because a rumour gains traction on the BSF it doesn't make it true. As for Ward and Holders alleged comments it was only Darcy not Chris that talked about poor tracks but he suddenly decided they weren't so bad after all and wanted to ride here once someone greased his palm with a bit more silver. None of us (including you) know which tracks Darcy was referring to because he didn't say but I can tell you that Jan Stechman said in April last year that the Lakeside track prep is (and I quote) "usually spot on", but then again what would he know about it. So get back in the Tardis KKS and lets see what guise you turn up in next.

Is this an objective discussion about racing or just a platform for you to voice your petty and irrational dislike of certain clubs, and their promotions ? First we have a rant about small tracks now you are saying that when Lakeside and Eastbourne go to Peterborough they are poor teams that provide no opposition. If you had a clue what you were talking about you would know that since team racing was introduced sometimes decent teams have taken a pasting on the wrong day and sometimes poor teams get lucky and produce a close result. The fact remains that both Lakeside and Eastbourne performed pretty well away overall over the course of last season (and the one before) so blaming them for small crowds at EOAS is pretty churlish. Things like a machine failure or exclusion at the wrong time can totally change the dynamics of a match. Its just the nature of the sport. Most of us have seen meetings at times with close scoreline but processional racing and matches that have some cracking racing despite a big gap in the scores. Spouting off about other clubs in derogatory fashion doesn't make you look clever or a better person than the rest of us, in fact it just makes you look a prat. One of the great things about speedway is the sense of equality between most fans. Some of the overtakes that Davey Watt pulled off last season, practically turning the bike inside out were probably as good as you'll see anywhere in the world. You won't get much support from anyone by claiming that Peter Karlsson is anything other than a master of his trade and usually worth the admission alone. Darcy Ward is class personified at Lakeside, as is Chris Holder. But like all tracks the entertainment value varies week to week for a whole range of reasons. That is the nature of the sport at Lakeside and everywhere else.

Its on the website under "Details". Adult £17 Seniors, disabled, students £14 Unemployed £12 17-18years £12 Age6-16 £3 under6 free Family ticket £37

Dog racing, stock-cars, and grass track racing have all declined a lot in the last 20 or 30 years. County cricket generally gets poor crowds and maybe wouldn't survive if not for the one day game Pubs have fared even worse, so have a whole range of other things.To assess speedways decline we have to look at a whole range of factors outside as well as inside the sport.

A post written with such wisdom and insight that it could almost have come from KKS himself.

People talk absolute rubbish about attendances based on what they think. Estimating crowd sizes by sight is notoriously difficult but speedway crowds fluctuate considerably from week to week depending on a number of factors, although the know-alls who think they can estimate crowd sizes seem to think they are more or less the same every week. A couple of years ago Lakeside published some attendance information on their website. The lowest was 400 for a televised Wolves match on a very cold wet, Monday when watching on TV was amore attractive proposition and the highest was getting on for 2800 for a local derby with Eastbourne on a sunny bank holiday. The general pattern, according to information published by the promotion is that attendances start off high then gradually drop off until the school holidays then pick up again. I would imagine most clubs follow a similar sort of pattern so taking one or two meetings as a snapshot and assuming those meetings represent the average crowd throughout the season is wildly inaccurate. However, the fact remains that it is not the promotions of Lakeside, Eastbourne, Kings Lynn, or anyone else apart from Peterborough that have been making public threats to close down because of poor crowds and more particularly poor sponsorship so whatever guesstimates people put on it the EOES crowds they are not healthy.

Not unreasonable to expect that the top 4 will score 34 between them at few away meetings, and if the bottom 3 can collect 9 more between them at the same time you start collecting away points. Wolves are usually pretty solid at home most years and if you maintain a good home record you don't need to score many away points to make the play-offs. It depends on everyone firing together of course but I don't think Wolves can be ruled out as play-off contenders, especially if they sta injury free.

Issue 1 of the 2012 team declarations is still on the BSPA website for those that bother to look and shows Ritchie Worrall as a 3 point d/u rider. He was announced as part of the 2012 team on the clubs website and was in the squad from day one. Now don't be a prat and stop digging. You are in a very sensitive area for obvious reasons.

Lets go back 3 years to the winter of 2009/10, when the boot was on the other foot. Swindon gave permission for Lakeside to talk to Lee Richardson and later withdrew it, although they never named Rico in their own line-up. The result was that Rico started the 2010 season without an EL team place, and only got into Lakeside after Kasprzak was sacked two months into the season. A bit of Karma going on with Swindon maybe ? Maybe not an exact parallel but Swindon are not whiter than white in all this.

OK I was going from memory on Peter's position but I think the principle is still the same and rider No 20 is the watershed average.

No, basically the way it works is that you take the average of rider No 20 on the list and can only sign two riders on his average or higher. So if for example you want to sign Tomasz Gollob, he is not on the list but his starting average is higher then rider No20 so if you sign Gollob or someone like him you can only sign one other rider from the top 20. If you sign Gollob and Hancock then that is your full quota because they both have higher averages than rider No20 on the list. On the other hand if you sign Peter Kildemand who is No21 on the list you can still have two higher averaged riders. So the watershed figure is the average of rider No20 0n the list, not the names of whoever is or is not on there.

Is that something you know for a fact or just what has been deduced from the BSF rumour mill ?

It would have been a simple thing for Horton to e-mail Barker a copy of the contract and ask Barker to e-mail his confirmation by return. Pretty much standard business practice, would have taken minutes to do and removed any doubt. Its difficult to understand why a businessman like Mick Horton would not do something like that.

Correct.

Its got nothing to do with whats in writing, its do with what is in the minds of the parties. All a written contract does is remove any doubt or confusion about the terms of the contract. As Midland Robin said terms and contract are effectively the same thing but payment has to be agreed.

If that were true how come Peterboro agreed to let Lakeside have Piotr Swiderski on loan without making any noises about selling him ? If they knew they weren't going to use him he would be the first one to try to sell off if your theory were true.

I was offered a frontal lobotomy but I'd rather have a bottle in front o' me.

Do you seriously believe that no rider has ever taken legal advice on this subject ? There are a variety of reasons why it is highly unlikely that any rider would take to the ECHR, quite apart from the legal aspect. One is the cost and another is the time it would take to get through the English courts first, and then get permission to go to the ECHR which already has a massive backlog of cases to deal with.. Another is the fact that once you start taking promoters to court it can have an adverse effect on one's career in the long term e.g getting team places. If a rider such as NKI aged 30 were to run this all the way to the ECHR he would probably be winding down his topflight career by the time it actually gets heard and would gain little if anything in real terms. The asset system is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

This discussion and some old programmes reminded be of a race that just about sums Briggo up. It was at West Ham and Briggo was against Anders Michanek. Now, Michanek was one of speedways real hardmen, even the ruthless Olle Nygren described him as a "hard bastard" so he was definitely no pushover to say the least. Michanek made the gate and Briggo tried to get through on the inside, but Mich clamped him against the white line, so Briggo tried the outside, leaning on Michanek but Michanek elbowed him out, then Briggo, who had had enough of it by now switched back to the inside and bulldozed Michanek out of the way as if he was a rag doll. The amazing thing about all this was that it all happened on the first two bends rather than two or three laps and Briggo went into the back straight in front. I can't ever remember seeing anything like it. That was the amazing thing about Briggo. he has so much upper body strength he could just flick the bike around and get it to go wherever he pointed it. I would have loved to have seen some of the clashes between Briggs and Fundin when they were both at their peak, but sadly it was before my time. Fundin was well on the way down by the time I got to see him and even Briggo was past his best but still pretty amazing. Anybody remember them at their absolute peak ?

One of the main differences between this situation and the Bosman case at the moment is that the riders have not lost any money because the season has not started. Bosman had lost earnings so he was able to sue for that loss, but you can't sue for what you haven't lost. You saw how messy it all got a couple of years ago when people started going off to court. Allen Trump, who started the litigation thinking he had a solid case finished up going out of speedway. That's the sort of unforeseen consequences you risk in going to court on this type of thing. Riders have more important things to concentrate on than getting involved with court cases that may have all kinds of unforeseen repercussions on their careers., not to mention the costs involved with lawyers. It will all blow over.