E I Addio

Jon Cook was on the mic earlier in the season and said some NL promoters were idiots. The referee heard it but there was no fine so presumably the ref agreed.

Do you seriously think the fans are so dim they can't find their way to the Lakeside website for exact same information you persistently cut and paste?

In heat 12 Hurry fell off so Mason beat his reserve team mate and a Lakeside reserve . Before that he scored three points f rom three rides. If the Brum promotion are happy with that then that's fine but I'm glad he's gone from Lakeside.

I think that Laurence is actually about 27 but it makes no difference. We still have a rider who has been riding ten years and has hardly improved at all. I agree he is not really good enough to ride as reserve. It's only a matter of time before drops back to reserve and Couzins come up, which unfairly puts more pressure on Couzuns. Laurence is just not doing his job. He is probably the worst rider I have ever seen in the number 2 race jacket, The results show they did the right thing in getting rid of Mason though.

It's roundabouts and swings . If you take the top 8 out of the semi's there are no big names left to pull the punters in to that meeting. More to the point all the successful foreign riders that have ridden here- everyone from Holder to Ermolenko say one of the main reasons Brits are unsuccessful in the big time is that they have it too easy in their own country, compared with those who have to travel half way round the world to ride here and are not hungry enough. Unless they have to fight for every point they are never going to be internationally successful. The standard is low enough as it is without giving out free lunches.

Once you start seeding at this level you take the competition element away. A large part of the excitement that gives a championship its value is the surprise of an expected also ran- Barker I this instance- riding out of his skin and surprising everyone, or even Kerr with his unexpected win and some of the supposed in form riders - Kennett, Nichols and Bomber of not riding to form.

He won't get much change on the continent if he can't be arsed to get himself there on time, same as everybody else. Just as well he gets a sense of responsibility now. If you make special arrangements for Lambert then the same arrangement would have to be afforded to Cookeif he failed to qualify, then if Cooke and Lambert can be shoe horned in, why not the Worrals or Lawson. How by any measure can you waive the rules for Lambert and nobody else ?

I can only suggest you change the place you stand at Lakeside. I have stood at different points around the track and never had any trouble viewing. As for saying there is no banking that really is complete nonsense. If you stand on the straight the track is level with the stock car track, if you then move to the apex of the bend it can be clearly seen that the Speedwáy track is about a couple of feet higher than the stock car track due to the banking .which is pretty much the same as Rye House. Whilst I have only been an occasional. visitor to Rye I have never seen close racing there other than odd heats. The attraction of Rye for me is that you can stand very close to the racing, more so than Arena. I agree that nothing can or ever will come close to Custom House or Waterden Road,

That more or less sums it up for me as well. The racing in the Kent match was as good if not better than you will see anywhere but it was a bit of a one off. I agree the adrenalin rush doesn't seem to be there when they come to the tapes in the NL, I see the attraction of NL for some but it's not really for me. I thought I would be going to Rye House a bit more but haven't been able to motivate myself so far. Rye House itself is in a very watered down league. As a life long fan who hardly missed a match when Lakeside were in the top flight, and an occasional visitor to Rye House I seem to have lost motivation these days.

Alan Hunt. From all that I have read about him it seems he was not only a hell of a nice bloke but a real tough rider and, according to his wife he was a rubbish mechanic so would have had to score all his points by pure riding skill. Incidentally does anyone on here have any first hand memories of Alan, who sadly died 60 years ago this year.

Rosco doesn't like Lawson for some reason, that's been made clear in the past. Rosco is a complete and utter plonker, always had been , always will be.

I agree. Speaking as a self confessed Elite Lite league snob it was by far the best NL meeting I have seen ( not that I have seen many) and there will be a lot of meetings at Premier and Championship league track were the racing is nowhere near what we saw last night., especially heats 13 and 15. It wasn't just the racing but the score line was quite exciting from a spectator point of view with nothing in it for the first half of the meeting before the home team established their authority in the closing stages. Both teams rode well. Apart from the big scorers, Nick Laurence and Jamie Cousins are looking a bit smother and more confident and both has some good races where they held on for vauable points. Connor Locke struggled at first but eventually came to the party and chipped in with some well earned points on a track that was new to him. Most impressive was Alfie Bowtell, really coming on, really showing some improvement and absolutely fearless. A great performance from him down in the engine room at.No 4.

The standard formula that knocks a percentage off the average for each year out if the sport. Hurry was given the average during the winter and wasn't named in the Lakeside squad at the start of the season so he was available for Kent ir anyone else to sign if they wished. None of the other clubs wanted him now they are moaning because Lakeside have him.

Then he is only saying what the BSF have been saying for years.

Most of Laurence's points have been gifted, finishing third in a tree man race, or riders falling off.There is nothing I have seen in Laurence to suggest he is ever going to progress even to a half decent second string. Couzins just about gets the benefit of the doubt but not showing much star quality so far. Hunter has never really lived up to expectations. I hope Locke does well, but the fact remains that Lakeside will always be overly dependent on the top three.

Unfortunately top tier in British Speedwáy no longer means top quality, far from it. Plenty of people object to paying£18 for top tier gating. You pays your money and takes your choice. Unfortunately in Claret 73's case he doesn't pay his money but just sits at home moaning instead of getting a life. I can well understand people giving up on modern Speedwáy. I just can't understand why they constantly moan about it instead of finding something they do enjoy.

Can you just tell us whereabouts on the clip we can see the blue groove you were talking about because I caluldnt see one? I wasn't there but apart from dust in the latter part of the meeting and a very dry patch going into bend three it was almost impossible to tell what the track was like. It's almost always a given that the track will not be as good in daytime meetings as others have said bug it's virtually impossible to comment further from these camera angles. As usual you are having a moan for the sake it. What I saw, as most weeks was Lakeside with a strong top end that could hardly be touched and reserves that were not up to the job, especially Laurence who is still no better than he was 10 years ago. That's not so much to do with the track as the riders

Bil Longley , (New Cross and Odsal pre 1948,) captained the Australian test team for a while so deserves to be in.

Well, there is a meeting on Sunday so Lakeside should have declared their team to their opponents by now. I suspect we would have heard if for some reason Hurry is not included. I doubt whether Lakeside would have made a public statement saying that David Mason is no longer with them if they weren't certain of having a replacement. EDIT there is an away meeting on Saturday as well so I guess Hurry must have been approved.

It depends what you mean by crooked. The BSPA have for years frustrated and confused the fans by what appear to be contradictory rulings, but am not sure how you make the jump from there to saying as a fact there was some kind of favouritism/backhander/ corruption even though some posters will draw that inference every time whether it is fair or not. I do think we shouldn't be jumping to conclusions until we first know whether the team change has been approved, secondly what Hurrys official average is and thirdly how that figure was reached. Having an explanation from the BSPA is perhaps to much to hope for based on past experience.

Absolutely, IF enough evidence is gathered, but if no evidence , there is no reason for the rumour mill to be given credibilty. We don't yet know what averaged Hurry comes in on or why, but ultimately it is for the BSPA to aprove or not aprove the team changes so any complaints should be at their door night Lakesides.

Tiger Stevenson, captain of West Ham and England.

Well said. It's the old story, some people go through life looking for the positives and others go through looking for the negatives. We all know where Moxey fits in.

He did indeed. Three riders involved in first bend bunching and Mason came off worst, head first into the air fence. Did well to walk away from it. Concussion cane be a funny thing as has been seen many times. A rider can complete his rides but the effects follow the next day or days later. Mason might not like the big tracks, Hunter is out of form at the moment and the reserves are not setting the track alight so the Hammers will be weakened slightly without him.

There goes another poster who never attends but still latches onto a bit of unsubstatiated BSF gossip to put the boot in. The figure of 250 for Lakeside -v- Belle Vue last Friday was someone's guesstimate . Someone else guessed 350. The point you chose to ignore was that several posters on here correctly pointed out that it was one of the coldest nights they could remember and it clashed with a West Ham game on TV which woukd invariably hit the crowd. By comparison the lowest ever EL attendance was 400 for a match against Wolves on a cold wet night that was being broadcast on Sky anyway , the point being that you can't take the rock bottom attendance figure and suggest it is the norm. The crowd for the local derby against the old enemy Eastbourne on Good Friday looked to be to bigger than a lot of EL meetiings but the season opener against Eastbourne has always traditionally pulled a good crowd. That's the way it works, the meetings with big crowds subsidise the small crowds. You are not in a position to dispute it.