E I Addio

As I said its to do with the balance of the team. We have one reserve who shows no signs of making any progress, then we we have a reserve and two second strings who all have potential and deserve to be given a chance but they are all young and inexperienced and cannot be relied on for consistency. This puts a lot of pressure on the top two to consistently score bid points week in week out and to do it in heats 13 and 15 which is no easy task. I would have liked a third heatleader who could give the top two more support, to occasionally beat better riders than himself to take some of the pressure off the top two, not someone who basically only takes points off opposing second strings. In a way the structure of the team reminds me of the 2013 side where almost every home meeting it was down to Peter Karlsson and Davey Watt to go out and win heat 15 to seal the match because the rest of the side were under performing. I think the best we can hope for from Mason is to hold the fort until Hunter, Bowtell and Couzins come on a bit but I really don't see him as a key player.

Mason is in the side as third heatleader. He has ridden in 16 races and has only beaten four opposing heatleaders. Most of his points have come from beating second strings. The problem is that Lakeside is built in such a way that that there are some young riders that have potential but don't yet have the experience to be consistent. The team needs a third heatleader that can give proper support to the top two and is capable sometimes beating the opposing big guns, particularly on his home track, and capable of taking an effective heat 15 ride when the occasion demands it. Not wishing to keep on about Mason, and admittedly it's early season but everything the Kent fans were saying about him last year is proving to be true so far.

There is something he can do and that is ride like the third heatleader he is supposed to be. Four second places without beating an opposing heatleader is not good enough. Ok perhaps for a warm up meeting but he is not really pulling his weight at the moment. Let's hope he improves before the league starts in earnest, but unfortunately he comes with a bit of baggage and has done very little thus far to shake it off. As for Nick Laurence I can only endorse what others have said. Nice to see Alfie Bowtell and George Hunter getting in the points which should boost their confidence but both need some more polish to reach their potential. Early days yet though.

Agreed. It is just a challenge match and thre is a lack of decent heatleaders in the NL. It's. Not as if Hurry is doing some quality youngster out of a worthwhile ride, and although we wouldn't want it on a regular basis it's going to be far better for the crowd than to have r/r or some inadequate guest. I do agree though that with Hurrys injury record he must be mad, but that's a decision for him.

That's only part of hit. The stock cars get precedence in the fixture list and their fixture list which is made first and the Speedwáy club have to build their fixture I list on what's left. When the AGM was brought forward this year the stock car season was not finished so their 2017 fixture list was not completed which meant the Speedwáy club could do theirs which in turn meant they coukd to book a team without being able to tell riders what dates they woukd be needed. The question of traffic was discussed at the fans forum in January and it seems there were 5 traffic affected meetings where a lot of money was lost . As Jon Cook put it, it costs far more to run an EL meeting and when there are problems the loss is thousands of pounds. When the same problem hits an NL club the loss is hundreds of pounds, and is much more sustainable. Finally, and this is just me reading between the lines, so might not be right, but based on odd comments Cook has made I think he knew which way the wind was blowing with a watered down EL League and even more watering down next season and wanted to get out early and start building something sustainable in advance. I don't know, just guessing but Conner Dugard was sayin over the mic on Good Friday that he understands why Jon has done it, and it is about money so maybe there is more to it than meets the eye. Don't take this as gospel though., just my reading of it.

Quite honestly mate you must sit in front of Twitter looking for something to find fault with. The EL meetings used to take 1hr 35- 1hr 40 min on average if there were no stoppages , which of course there sometimes were. Today's meeting took a little over 1hr 50 min. The first four heats today took about 30 min with stoppages (which we have all seen in past in the EL) , but after that the ref really got on with it and put the two minutes on as soon as the riders were off the track from the previous race, Also one of the good things about the NL is that there is no gardening or messing about with clutches on the start line for several minutes before each race. It's straight out, green light on, tapes up and gone, so although there were stoppages the time is made up in other ways. There are some disappointments with NL racing, and the poor performance of Lakeside's bottom four is very disappointing but there is nothing wrong with the overall pace of the meeting compared to the old EL

That's a pretty fair assessment sid. Pratty was a bit of a perfectionist who understood the importance of gating in speedway . His bikes were well prepared and his clutches were apparently completely stripped, cleaned and reassembled before every meeting. He always liked to get to the track early for home meetings to make sure his favoured inside line was prepared as he wanted it so he was a pretty good gater who was rarely beaten if he hit the front first. Not surprised he beat Bjorn Knutson on a tight circuit like New Cross if he made the gate. Never smiled though, even if he banged in a maximum.

If you deduct a point from his score, the rider couldn't care less. Part of the problem is that in the first instance the club pay the fine and are supposed do deduct it from the riders pay but most of the time they don't, especially if it's a top rider they don't want to upset. If the rider is excluded from the race the fans pay in the short term but in the long term it drives the message home. These riders are supposed to be professionals and that means knowing the rules. If you or I made a fundamental mistake at work it's no excuse to say we didn't know. No point in having rules if you don't enforce them, and as others have said they are either not enforced or not enforced vigorously enough

At 36/37 years old he had a decent innings but it's always a shame when injuries force retirement. it is unfortunate that his career has been held back by a couple of bad knocks that needed surgery and took an extended recovery time but over the last few years we saw glimpses of what might have been. Best wishes for your retirement Joonas. You have been a good servant to the sport.

I loved having Lewi at Lakeside last year and hope the Poole fans get behind him. Don't expect too much too soon but he his full of enthusiasm and will give it 100%. I wish him and Poole well and hope it leads to something more permanent. He deserves it.

Slightly off topic but hopefully of interest, I remember Nigel Boock at one time experimenting with a V-twin JAP but nothing came of it. The Gold Star was one of the most of iconic motorcycles of all time. It had moderate success in trial and scrambles in the 1950's but apart from road racing at clubman level I don't think it ever achieved much in serious competition. I would imagine that compared to the speedway JAP of the same era the Goldie engine was far to heavy for speedway.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We will soon find out. It's just that it seems uncomfortable to me to have two three pointers at reserve with not much of a record to work on. It doesn't seem a balanced team at at all to me on paper , although as we all know, Speedwáy matches are not won on paper so I'll wait and see , and hope that those who say NL racing is exciting will be proved correct.

I see the Hammers website are inviting any unattached 3 point riders who want a team place to turn up at press and practice the day before the first match against Eastbourne. Doesn't seem very inspiring. Two three pointers at reserve, one of whom will be Nick Laurence who has been 3 pointer (or de facto 1 pointer) for his whole career, and the other will be someone who couldn't get a team place anywhere else a possibly may never have ridden the track until the day before. Two three pointers at reserve is not great at the best of times. I don't see many heat advantages in the reserve heats. I hope what others have said about NL racing being exciting proves correct but I don't have much confidence at the moment

I can only repeat the way Stuart described it at a fans forum some years ago. Stuart found himself sitting next to Jon at some sort of meeting ( I can't remember what it was) in the days when Stuart was just a sponsor and they just hit it off very well on a personal level (and they clearly still get on well on a personal basis) Stuart later bought Lakeside and had interviewed various applicant for the job and was about to offer the job to someone when he got a call from Jon and the deal was done. Apart from that I have heard from another source that Cook was basically getting fed up with being Bob Dugards bag carrier at Eastbourne and wanted to have a bit of his own responsibility. It's fairly common knowledge that Eastbourne wasn't a happy ship at the time hence riders like Adam Shields came across with Cook.

When the website says they are promoters I think it probably means they each have s promoters licence, not necessarily that they are joint owners of the club. According to. Jon, Stuart is still very much in charge and involved in all the decisions.

Where is the evidence that he only came because he saw the pound sign ? I have never seen that account in the public domain. Is that true or something you made up? If you can't back it up it is slanderous and should be withdrawn . Stuart Douglas account is that he imterviewed other applicants for the job and Cook was, in his opinion, the one best qualified for the job. You seem to overlook the fact that at the end of 2006 Arens was on the point of closure and Cook was taking a leap in the dark because it meant increasing the crowds and balancing the books, otherwise he would have been out of the job. I get it that some people don't like Cook and he is not my favourite person but I don't get why people seem prepared to make things up.

How do you know that ? According to what he said in a fans forum a few years ago it is.

It's obviously more than a pipe dream when you consider they have turned down a move to Kent, and Jon Cook turned down a BSPA offer to run Belle Vue on behalf of the BSPA. Bottom line is Cook needs to have an income and I doubt whether he would have turned down the Belle Vue offer if he thought Lakesides days were numbered.and he would be out of a job at the end of it.

Indeed. In fact it need not be as sophisticated as BV. The 90 metre training track was laid down virtually single handedly by Gerald on a BSPA grant if I remember correctly of £5000. Obviously a 300 metre track would be proportionately dearer and it wouldn't have the expensive state of the art drainage that Belle Vue has, but it would be sufficient fo league racing, and at least comparable to many of the other tracks that were laid down in the late 1940s /1950s. The present Rye House track for example was built by Len Silver without employing expensive contractors and that is a reasonable track even if it is not Belle Vue. Then you would need stands on the home straight and terraced standing on the back straight which would not be cheap but basic facilities ( much better than the existing ones) could be set up to get the track in operation. Once the track is running further investment would come because the promotion would be making money on food outlets etc, which they don't at present. It's still a big ask, and would take a lot of effort to get there, but if Belle Vue, Leicester, Kent etc can do it, then Lakeside's prospects shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. It is doable without running into millions.

Do try to keep up. The discussion is what standard we can expect from genuine NL riders not an OAP that nobody wants masquerading as a genuine development league rider. And who said anything about expecting Lakeside to survive ? That's just your irrational bile and hatred pouring out. Nobody else has mentioned it. Any one with the slightest understanding of the sport knows it's not just Lakeside, there is a big question mark over whether the whole sport can survive, at least in anything vaguely resembling its present form.

We have had several years of juniors from the Hagon Shocks Academy racing before the main event and wobblers is the last way one would describe them. Almost all are very smooth. We have seen Ben Morley progress from a 14 year old to National League Champion so I think we know more or less what to expect.

He has jobs at Rye House and Poole and at Gerald's age it's probably a tough call doing three tracks on a regular basis. They have people who can do a track, perhaps not as well as Gerald but when he had his heart attack a few years ago they were able to get by. For the sort of track they need for NL racing they will probably be ok. For example they won't have riders going round the boards the way that Bridger and Kennett did. It will probably need to be fairly slick and even all over so the NL men can turn their bikes.

Except when David Mason is in the race !

I don't know too much about the NL but what you say sounds logical to me . If they do as bad as you say the long term future and new track must be in a degree of doubt.

Sad to read in Speedwáy Star that Jimmy Heard died last week. He rode for Hackney at No3 when my Speedwáy interest was getting started and his career was drawing to a close. Never a star but like a lot of them in those days he was a very, very nice bloke. I remember showing a picture of him to my French teacher who thought he must be a leg trailer because he had a hole In the left knee of his leathers, but Jim never exactly was a picture of sartorial elegance. Another part of my Speedwáy history gone. Thanks for the memories Jim.This schoolboy sitting on the rails by the starting gate at Hackney was a big fan of yours.