E I Addio

Not a lot of reason ? After last season nothing is going to hit attendances harder than yet more unnecessary, guests and r/r. A rider signs on the basis of being available for all meetings then suddenly he is not riding in key meetings against the best two teams in the league . In the entertainment business doing something that hits a promoters income is one of the best reasons there is to drop someone.

So, it was said as banter. Whichever way you break it down it comes to the simple fact that Bjarne first of all said he was going to give GB priority, then he subsequently got a job in Poland and we find he starts missing meetings. The goal posts had moved. There is some dispute over just how many meetings would be missed, but the starting point was still that Bjarne is 37 years old with a history of falling averages. Lakeside were at best taking a bit of a chance that he could turn the clock back but missing meetings against the two strongest teams in the league was a step too far. It's not as if he was sharing a position like Lawson and Kennet but as second heatleader you can't just go missing for key matches. It's unfortunate that all this comes up when Bjarne had spent money but if they look Bridger in ahead of someone else that person would also have spent money. I feel genuinely sorry for Bjarne but nobody forced him to say he was giving priority to GB . If he said at the start he would give priority to Poland he probably wouldn't have got the job in the first place. Of course it is once again Steve Shovlar who makes a rare post on the forum these days to come on and stir it up.

Ben Morely as second Tier two reserve takes it to 10.

Bjarne is 100% professional, agreed but he has not had a really good meeting at Lakeside for years, from memory only about one really big score there since he left Poole. Lewis was whacking in good scores all the time towards the end of 2014. Either one would be a gamble. In Bjarnes case it would be a gamble that he could turn the clock back to where he used to be, in LBR's case it's a gamble that he could turn the clock forward to where it should be. After seeing the way Lewis came from the back to beat Peter Kildemand in the last bend of his last race of 2014, in a move that Bjarne could never do in a million years, I would say he is the better option.....just ! As for the battle of the spoon I think you win that hands down Steve. The stirring spoon that is.

Yes.

Bjarne he isn't. A second heatleader he isn't. A team player he isn't. Good on away tracks he isn't. Talented he is. Exciting he is ( at least he is at Lakeside). He won't put Lakeside in the play offs but he will keep Lakeside away from the bottom of the table, and he will be a big asset in helping the Hammers to keep a good home record which will be essential in this years league, with a lot of teams that will struggle away. I would rather have had Bjarne, but Lewis is probably the best of what's left and if he is as spectacular as he was in the last few months of 2014 he will get a few extra punters through the turnstiles, so we have to give him (another) chance and see how it goes.

Better to be to in that position than to be less than a month from the start of the season and still not even have your basic 1-7 ,! !

It's not three fixture clashes though. The club statement says three fixture clashes just against Belle Vue in addition to Coventry and Poole. It also implies the situation is likely to get worse. When Bjarne first announced he wanted to ride again and wanted a job he said he was going to give Britain priority, then once he had a place at Lakeside he managed to get a job in Poland and suddenly GB is not such a priority after all. It will be a massive game changer for Lakeside because Bjarne was one rider that could give AJ the much needed support in heats 13 and 15, now it depends on someone else stepping up. Realistically you can't go into tough matches against teams like Belle Vue, Poole and Coventry with r/r for your second heat-leader, especially as Kelvin said he wants to make it a fortress at home. If Bjarne was only missing for home matches against Leicester or Kings Lynn they could probably get by on r/r. On the positive side it seems the message has got home that the fans a are sick to death of guests and r/r. I suppose it will mean Marmite Bridger will step up. There is no doubt that in the last 2or 3 months of 2014 he was riding really well, probably better than at any time in his career, especially at home, but I kind of feel that is as was at the upper limit of his ability, and really it needs a bit more than that to be a good second heatleader.

No, you are making things up yet again. I didn't say it was all on the website. You asked who the team was and I told you where to find it. That was all. That's something else you made up, just like the story about Lakeside having mostly riders that don't want to be there, that you couldn't back up when someone challenged you on it. In the words of Abraham Lincoln - " 'Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt "

Maybe someone can ask Bluster Chapman all this at the BSPA forum on Sunday. After all he should know..............we hope !

Good question. I wish you had asked that yesterday and someone could have asked Cookie but my gut feeling is that Alan Jones answer is probably right. Another good point. The rules have not been published yet but Ben Morley (assuming he does get signed) will be the second Tier 2 reserve and Tier 2 reserves stay at reserve, so my understanding is that Ben can only replacer Robert. The number 8 can replace any of the 1-5 that must include the first tier reserve if he is elevated into the main body, so in our theorectical example I would think it would either be Dennis Jonsson coming in to replace Kerr or more likely r/r because as far as we know at the moment you have to have r/r in the 2-5 and can only have a guest for number one. So although I just said Alan Jones was probably right, he might not be ! I think we need to wait for the rules to be published before unraveling that one ! !

As I understand the position, averages will be calculated every 4 weeks to so a Tier 1 reserve won't be able to build up a huge CMA before being re-assessed so even if he went into the 1-5 he would likely only be there 4 weeks before coming down again. In the context of Lakeside it means that even if Lewis Kerr went into the 1-5 it would mean any one from Swiderski, Lawson , Kennett, Nilsson would be down at reserve and able to take 7 rides if necessary. We can't say for certain until the season gets going but my gut feeling is that it will work out alright.

Greg only went to Poole because he lost his job in Poland when his team went out of the play-offs in the last few weeks of the season. He went to Poole because they could afford him and we're trying to get into the play offs. A club struggling at the bottom of th table by the end of July are not going to make the play- offs and are unlikely to splash out on a rider like Greg. I don't know about Emily Sajfutinov but as I recall her brother Emil only did a few weeks and missed a few meetings anyway. Emil wants a big wage upfront and no club struggling are likely to be able to afford it. He is very unlikely indeed to be seen riding for a British club.

The reserves are still protected but the 1st Tier reserve (Lewis Kerr) can go into the 1-5 if his averages goes high enough. Rob Mear stays at reserve all season whatever his average. I doubt that we'll see Swidders at reserve. More likely he will put at least 2 points on his average, possibly even 3 points once he is dialled in.

Since some clubs are struggling to sign good enough riders that get them up to the team building limit of 40.5 how are they going to find riders that get them up to a higher limit ?

Easy. You go on the website, click on 2016 Hammers , and as if by magic, all present signings will appear. Couldn't be easier. The riding numbers like any other club are allocated just before the start of the season usually after Press and Practice, same as every other year.

Stevebrum, love him or loathe him, is at least a regular fan with a love of the sport. Like most other passionate supporters he talks with a mixture of sense and nonsense with a bias towards his own club. The sport is much better of with the stevebrums of this world than the armchair fans that offer advice but don't go as far as actually going through the turnstiles, for whatever reason.

.....and the information was posted on here at 8.10am . Strange coincidence that. Your post also said you didn't know which riders had been signed, but that information is on the website for those that look .

As Liam said you always have the joyful one to support you. Having a differing point of view is fair comment, but when you, like the joyful one say you haven't been to the track for ages, don't read the website, don't read the programme notes, then say you don't know what's going on, don't understand the points limit etc, well that's just a bit stupid. Some of the comments about the riders have been just plain naive.

The winner of the bingo will then be 'guest team manager' for the evening. It is anticipated that they'll do a better job than Neil Vatcher. Not difficult to work out who one of the constant carping complainers was on the old Lakeside forum that made it become tediously one -sided boring. Just to be clear, when V.O.R speaks of "we" and "none of us " he doesn't actually speak on behalf of anyone except himself even though he appears to think he does..

Friday tracks have riders going off to the SGP now. They just don't fix meetings on GP weekends. There is room in the calendar for that. The problem is not a tiny number of GP riders but the double uppers who have PL commitments with PL tracks.

I understand the guest problem but crowds are much smaller now than when Swindon changed their race night. You talk about a couple of seasons and people got their heads round it but on present crowd levels can most clubs afford to go under the breadline for a couple of seasons before picking up again ? Whichever way you play it their are problems, especially as with only 8 EL clubs we cannot afford a single one to drop down to PL or worse still close completely. The BSPA were meeting today so we should have some more info by their fans forum on Sunday, but don't expect a quick fix.

Unfortunately Sky say it needs to be a minimum of 8, so that knocks that one on the head.

And who are these PL clubs wanting to step up and why have they not applied to step up until now? One look at Birmingham or Leicester shows it's not an easy task stepping up, even more so for those clubs that will need to change their race nights.

Lakeside tried Wednesday race nights in 2008, and they abandoned the experiment because attendances plummeted, and that was in the days when we still had Adams, Crump etc. What reason is there (apart from pure guesswork ) to believe they would be any better on Wednesdays now? Coventry, Lakeside, and Belle Vue have Friday race nights for a reason. That's when the best crowds come.