E I Addio

Let's be honest . If Ford thought he was missing out we would have heard about it by now. If Rosco thought he was missing out we might have to wait for the Swindon Advertiser first to come out but he wouldnt be keeping quiet about it either.

:D

It never was a true draft, although I do see your point. My take on it is that all this has not happened in the last few days. Jon Cook was talking about a back up plan ages ago. Everybody must have known for a long time Lewis Blackbird wasn't coming back because he hasn't signed for a PL club and they seem to be mostly complete now. Chapman must have know quite early on that PUK was seriously in doubt , and it wouldn't surprise me at all if all this has been on the cards for a long time, kept under wraps away from public gaze. That might well be the reason Lakeside have not announced any names on the BSPA site, because it now seems some adjustment will need to be made to accommodate Kerr/ Maybe nobody else wants Mear as Tier 2. He is not the greatest rider on away tracks, No doubt other promoters would by complaining if they were short changed by this. At the bottom of it all is the dithering and indecision by Buster Floodlight-Fuse who clearly knew before the season ended that NKI was in doubt but failed to get his ducks in a row in good time, hence the messing around with race night. Not an auspicious start for the man who reckons he is going to make the sport more credible. Anyway, welcome to Lakeside Lewis. Big welcome from the fans certain to be there for you in March Yep, you beat me to it.

It doesn't matter who they sign. They could sign Uncle Tom Cobbley for all the fans care as long as they perform. After all the promotion have been saying, if they finish up constantly losing matches at reserve after the 1-5 have out scored the opposition I am sure the crowd levels will fall to unsustainable levels. Same with the second heatleader. After being told that the promotion acknowledge that they need a second heatleader that can back AJ in the big heats I can't see the fans accepting a glorified second string. Of course, Cook coukd still pull something out of the bag, and a weak team on paper doesn't necessarily mean a weak team on track, but I do feel this will be a make or break season for the Hammers.

They already have someone doing a good job serving on the burger stall. What's needed is someone to do a good job supporting AJ as second heatleader.

If. (big IF) this speculation is true then Bjarne and Awesome would , on my dodgy arithmetic, bring the total to 39.88 assuming Blackbird comes in on a four but I think he is actually a shade under that. Bjarne on a 6.55 earned on the old format ? He says he is hungry to ride in Britain again but we have heard all that before. Its a long time since he scored 23 in a single meeting at Lakeside. I think his total for his last 10 visits is probably less than 23. Anybody know what Jurica Pavlic is up to these days ?

Hmmmm.... Let's think this through......I might be getting this wrong and I might get wooshed but:- First Pirates of Poole, who is a bit more intuitive than most talks about Lakeside using a Poole asset. Then Skidderlidoo who is a bit more on the ball with Fat Maud drops a hint about Bjarne Pedalson. Now today I read in SS that said B.Harney is coming to an English club. Well, if he is he ain't going back to Leicester, which narrows it down a bit. Could be KL with his mate Paddington Bjerre who by all accounts has also been peddling his wares but didnt get a bite so has probably drifted back to King Slinn. But, it could just be that Bjarnes 7 point ish average fits neatly into what Lakeside have left and still leave room for Aub Lawson if the Glasgow thing gets sorted. Just speculating of course. We won't know for sure until Starman says no way will Bjarne P. Ride for Lakeside then we'll know he's on his way.

It does the club a lot of damage if people spread those sort of rumours around without some hard facts to back them up. Leicester seem to have more than enough problems at the moment without gossip that potentially pushes them closer to the edge. DH might not be flavour of the month but he deserves a fair chance to get himself sorted without being knifed in the back.

Nobody is asking you to apologise for having an opinion. Just asking you to have the integrity to acknowledge you once again got caught out telling porkies about Chris Holder

Nah, it's the other way round at the moment, Lakeside's asset propping up Pooles over-stated wobblers !

Interesting that Starman gave a "like " to that post so he is obviously reading the thread, unable to come on and admit he is wrong. Or maybe he is too busy organising the Free Jerran Hart Campaign !

Starman has become conspicuous by his sudden absence from the thread .

Nope. A tad worrying yes , but on balance I would be amazed if Jon Cook signed him without a fairly firm guarantee he would ride. The big concern really is who the new second heatleader will be. At least we know it won't be Dave Watt back. So it looks like either Batch (unlikely) or someone completely new ( I presume and fervently hope that Dakota North isn't even in the frame) .

Absolutely true but the inescapable fact is that he is not getting any younger, plus the fact that breaking his back at KL in 2013 is a massive injury even for a much younger man to overcome. I agree he keeps himself in good shape and has forgotten more about the sport than many will ever know, but signing him woukd be a gamble. I have watched several times the meeting when he came to Lakeside with Wolves in 2010 or 11 and scored a maximum and some of his great meetings in Lakeside colours and what was amazing in those matches was his sharpness away from the tapes. I really think these days thst sharpness has largely gone. Much I am a great admirer of the man I think Wolves are doing the right thing in going for someone younger. Time will tell.

Very impressed with Boxall during his all-too-short spell at Lakeside before he was injured. Quite a gutsy rider from what I saw, and although he has an unfortunate reputation for reliability ( or lack of it ) he seems to have matured quite a lot a deserves this chance.

You can't count anything Coventry fans say.

Yep, the rules say you can't knock someone off. Penhall was good at not knocking people off. He didn't knock Kenny Carter off either Hang on. I did say he was one of the very, very best. Just going by Banger Jansens interview in Classic Speedway a toss of the coin for gate positions might , MIGHT, have made the difference in his final title win. Wish I had seen Ronnie Moore and Briggo at their absolute best. By the time I saw them they were both over the hill. Still absolute world class, still both able to win the British Championship in what was at the time a class field, but both on the way down and past their best. Would have loved to have seen them in their prime. o Others I would have liked to have seen : Aub Lawson, Jack Parker, Tommy Price, Split Waterman

Just to be clear, there is no post anywhere on this thread or that says Kyle has no ambition. In a discussion about Jason Garritty it was stated that Garritty has ambition and the blue tints brigade (led by you ) were so offended that credit should be given to a Coventry rider they all started harummphing about Newman who was not the subject of that particular discussion.

Rick Frost seems to have gone very quiet on his demands for an independent body to run the sport since he got hooked up,with Ford. Strange that, especially since him and Trump practically brought the sport to its knees with his demands for one five years ago.

Ok, I sort of get it but I still think there will be some anomalies, but maths is not my strong point. We'll see what the final list says.

By all means correct me if I am missing something or being obtuse, but surely the amount of time a rider spends as heat-leader depends on the strength of the rest of the team . For example if Dave Watt had ridden for a Leicester or Wolves the chances are he would have spent a lot longer as heatleader than he did at Poole. It surely also depends on injuries. Kim Nilsson had only just been elevated to heatleader when he was injured and therefore missed a number of meetings in a heatleader role. That can make all the difference to the assessment couldn't it ?

No, we believe there are 18 riders on it because that's what CVS said ( I think it was CVS ) and while I accept that he is one of the more reliable promoters in his announcements, despite being the target of all kinds of abuse by some on here, this is still Speedwáy so I personally prefer to wait till we see the list in black and white. Unfortunately the discussion on here has been generating more heat than light so far, partly by the pronouncements of some who think they are "in the know" when they clearly are not, and partly because of the hyperbole of some who clearly cannot read a simple press release. The heatleader list is obviously not a definitive list of who is a heatleader and who is a second string. It is merely an attempt to ensure that there is a reasonable spread of riders and reasonable competitiveness between teams. Whether it is successful in those objectives remains to be seen, but there are bound to be a few anomalies or a few that some fans think are wrong, but the acid test is the general competitiveness of the final line ups when all are finally announced. EDIT: the comparison between Davey and Danny is a case in point. Personally I would have Davey over Danny any day , but others will have a different view, so we are unlikely to get a list that everyone thinks is great, but we can only judge it when we see it.

OK Sid, I am happy to be corrected on Maugers 79 Title win. I cannot remember the details so maybe I am getting mixed up with another occasion. I totally agree with you about Briggo though. The other way of looking at it is that Fundin was sort of lucky to take 5 World titles. There was an interesting article in Classic Speedwáy when Bengt Jansen was talking about his run-off with Fundin. Apparently both riders knew that whoever won the toss for gate positions would win the title because one gate was working much better than the others. Ove won the toss and picked the best gate. Jansen said he even asked Fundin to swap gates on the basis Fundin already won 4 titles and Bengt hadn't won any but Ove wouldn't swap. Still I cant fault Fundin on his record. By all accounts, one of the very , very best the sport has ever seen.

Most people's view ? A few on here maybe that want to jump,the gun but until we see the list, know how long it is, and what the criteria was ( assuming it wasn't just guesswork) I don't think anyone can say whether he should or shouldn't be on it. I am mystified as to how Danny King coukd be on there and not Davey, ( if it's true that Danny is on there) but it's difficult to say without seeing who else is on it.

That would be very difficult with you up it