E I Addio

Garrityhas ambition. He hopes to be good enough to stay in the 1-5 all season and in the longer term to progress to heatleader. Fair play to him for showing some spirit. Faint heart never won fair maiden. Newman appears not to have the same determination. They still have to take Garrity's average into account for team building (albeit converted PL)whether he comes in as EDR Tier 1 reserve or as a second string. I think Garrity has done the right thing certainly for himself and probably for his club as well.

Good post. Unfortunately the forum is plagued with people who read something then on the tortuous journey between their eye and their brain it somehow takes on a totally different meaning. All we really have to go on at the moment is the SCB announcement after the AGM. That is from the horses mouth, and nobody in an official capacity has actually said it is wrong. The official SCB statement doesn't say there is a list of 24 riders. It simply says there is "a list" . It doesn't say if a new foreign over 6.5 rides for an EL club he replaces someone else on the list. It simply says he JOINS the list. The statement doesn't say how the list is assessed, nothing about averages, or how often someone has ridden as heatleader. All we really know at the moment is that there is a list and clubs will be limited to 3 heatleaders from it. The rest is speculation

The points limit has got nothing to do with whether riders ride here. A points limit of 40.5 is not keeping Niicki or Emil away. What keeps them away is the fact that they can earn plenty of money without the extra traveling of coming here or the extra expense of setting up a British base with Bikes, workshop mechanics etc.

That is not necessarily the case with all of them . Some feel the need for regular racing other race here because they don't have the sort of pressure they have in Poland to perform and can enjoy their racing. The only common denominator is that very few of them race here because they need the money !

The SCB announcement itself is somewhat contradictory if you compare the opening part with the summary of what was agreed, but taking the the summary of what was agreed it appears they are talking about a tier 1 riders only having averages.For the moment I am presuming they know what they agreed but apart from what is coming out from certain clubs, notably Swindon (Rosco in speaking goobledegook shock! ) some posters are either putting there own spin on it or basing their comments on what they have heard rather than what was said. In answer to side point though it doesn't appear there is any conspiratorial secrecy just the usual time it takes to get the rules published. No other branch of motor cycle sport appears to have published its regulations for 2016 and as far as I know the ACU Handbook for 2016 is not out yet, so it's hardly dilatory . The other thing is that we don't know yet what if any changes have to be made to comply with FIM regulations for example to technical standards to bikes, silencers and tracks, which has to be incorporated in the 2016 Speedwáy Regs. It's all very well for you to get on your high horse Sid but I don't think this sort of delay as it stands so far is unusual for any branch of motor sport, although I would agre that if the regs don't come out until February as I think was the case last season or the season before is pretty poor.

It's not a question of whose fault it is, it's a matter of what are the consequeces. The consequences of a team being cast adrift in March with no hope of building a decent team, are that attendances which are barely sustainable at present will suffer further and the risk of closure arises. That is the point SCB was driving at. My goodness, there are some blinkered thickos on the South Coast but you take the biscuit. No Speedwáy fan with an element of decency about him wants to see fellow fans watching a rubbish team getting beat every week,even if if idiots like you think it's funny.

Sid, the rules have not been published yet. What we have at the moment is the SCB announcement summarising what was agreed. That summary has still to be distilled into specific rules which will be included in the rule book when it is released. The problem is that most people seem to have not bothered to read the SCB announcement and the comment on the Swindon website is at odds with what the SCB announcement says, hence people are getting confused and moaning about it when it's there own fault for not reading the SCB announcement.

Not surprised it caused a falling out. Naughty Rosco, pinching Matts stunts !

I keep telling stevebrum that KK is on his way to Wolves but he doesn't believe me

Kasprzak

It's like Russian roulette, with everyone hoping someone else gets Kasprzak !

For one thing 4.89 is not Adams PL average. According to the Poole website it is his (unofficial) EL average. More to the point the SCB Announcement issued after the AGM specifically says Tier 1 riders get a converted PL average. If Tier 2 rider get a converted PL average then presumably the announcement would have said so instead of mentioning only Tier 1. So, back to square one: how is it that Starke gets a convertedPL average unless he is Tier1in which case he wouldn't be at Poole anyway. Has there been a formal announcement that Tier 2 riders get a converted PL average (nd I don't think there has) or is this just another one of the forums urban myths with no factual basis ?

Serious question: why would Ellis be on a 3 and not Starke, unless Starke is now in the top tier ? If Ellis, who according to the Poole website has an average of 4.89 comes in on a 3 surely all tier 2 riders would also be on a 3 ?

The last sentence is something that could be said about most teams at the start of every season but the landscape changes enormously by play off time. Who would have though last March that Kings Lynn who looked so strong then finish up,missing the play offs by a mile. Who would have thought that Coventry who seemed so much in the driving seat to top the league would have gone out with such a whimper. Then look at Swindons roller coaster of a season. The first priority IMO is to win at least 13 home meetings then it only needs to pick up a few points away to make the PO's. After that anything can happen . Like most clubs in most years it depends largely on everyone staying fit.

I know you made the point elsewhere about on conversion from their draft averages and you were right about it IMO . My point is that once you move away from conversion from draft averages you open the door to all kinds of inconsistencies and that is exactly what has happened. The whole matter of protected assets is one of the things that mess up the draft. Let's not be specific about Poole then. Protected assets mean that any club whose protected asset does well at reserve can keep getting him back and so have the top scoring reserve year on year. It would be the same for Coventry if Garrity had decided to have another year as EDR instead of standing his ground and going into the 1-5. The protected asset system is good for the clubs that own that asset but no good for the sport when the fans can fill their programmes in for the protected heats before the race even starts season after season It reduces the relevance of the league as serious competition. Secondly if the whole point of EDR is to give more experience to riders then surely it is beneficial to the riders themselves to have a season at somewhere other than their home track.

So Howarth and Newman both have higher EL averages than PL but Howarth rides on his higher average but Newman rides on the lower average ? So which one does Auty ride on ? I think we ought to wait for the starting averages to be confirmed before looking at this further because until then we wont know for surer, but one thing that seems to be coming increasingly clear is that this whole mess has kicked off because Poole were allowed to fiddle it to get Newman back/ THe one thing that 98% of us probably agree on is that the fairest way and most logical way to do it is that the team that finishes bottom gets first pick and the team that finishes top gets last pick. Once you start tampering/fiddling /adjusting that arrangement its sets up a domino effect that is liable to create all kinds of inconsistencies and at the end of the day that seems to be what is happening ..

The problem is not clubs that use the rules its a club that breaks them.

Is it any different with Howarth ? You can't compare PL averages with EL but they are still putting riders in on converted PL averages, hence Newman finishes up half way down the list he should have been top of.

So let's get this right. Adam Ellis gets a higher average at reserve for Lakeside than Rob Mear, goes to Poole on a 3 point average as an EDR rider and nothing is said. Rob Mear goes to Lakeside on a 3 and suddenly it's all wrong. Apart from the fact that Mear had an official GSA and no GSA's were kept in Adams year at reserve, there is no difference. Both are being rounded down to three for team building purposes. It's not as though Mear was a special case. For whatever reason it has been decided that they all start on a 3 and as long as it's the same for everyone I don't see it as a major issue.

I guess he is just too dim to realise the irony of the at last sentence.

First of all, I don't want Dave Watt back. I thought he was excellent in 2013 and had some brilliant Heat 15s with PK in last heat decides, but that was probably the high water mark of his career , but times move on and the balance of the team is different now. Kim has been an asset for 6 years but he hasn't been a Hammer all that time. He has increased his starting average every year he rode as a Hammer. As for being a heatleader, in the first 6 home meetings of 2015 he recorded 4 wins and 2 seconds, in heat 1 racing against the opposing No1. AJ didn't win any of them and plenty of other No1s didn't manage anything like that. Matej Zagar certainly didn't, so I think Kim is under rated even though inconsistent away. The fact remains that Lakeside's 1-5 were averaging almost the same as Coventry and more than Kings Lynn so they weren't doing that bad a job despite a few howlers on the road. Harsh on Bech it may be, but he was employed as second heatleader and didn't quite deliver. He wouldn't have lasted half a season at Poole. Ed Kennett impressed a lot of home fans. He was not voted rider of the year for no reason. Some of his passes were absolutely top drawer and it would be madness to get rid of someone who gets punters through the turnstiles even if his away form has room for improvement. So to strengthen up either Mikkel or Richard need to be moved. We are still stuck with the matter of who realistically is available to do the job. Batch would probably be the best of a poor bunch but I suspect he could be at Kings Lynn.

It looks fairly certain that Bech won't be back. He is the only one of last seasons 1-5 that has not been offered a contract for next year. At his best he was quite outstanding but for every good meeting there were 3 or 4 not so good ones. He has had two seasons at Lakeside but to be brutally honest he is no further forward towards a heatleader role than he was two years ago and finished the season at No2. His average was under 6 before he dropped to second string. There seem to be worries that he is not a team man (few Danes are). I would like to see him back if he fulfills his potential but the home fans are not going to cut him any more slack if he were to come back and still not cut the mustard as a heat-leader I don't think MJJ wants to ride over here, but even if he did he hasn't exactly established a good record for reliability in this country. As for North, he is not good enough to fill the second heatleader role even in a weakened league. If he was that good Poole would have kept him. Jon Cook and Neil Vatcher have. both acknowledged that Lakeside's immediate need is for a rider who can constantly support AJ in the big heats, 13 and 15. The the pattern of Lakeside's scoring in probabably 75 % of last seasons matches was that they would be doing pretty well to around heat 10 nd then fade. The problem is that of the riders likely to ride in the UK next year, very,very few of them are good enough to fill the role Lakeside want filled. I suppose that goes for several other clubs as well.

I agree the BSPA are don't exactly have an enviable record of issuing clear and unambiguous press releases. I have done my best to interpret (guess) what I think they mean, but wouldn't stake my life on being 100% right about it! I think a little help from the Plain English Society in preparing their press releases would be beneficial ! P.S. Word on the streets is that Wolves are having talks with KK. No wind up.

Strange, the Poole website says Bucowski is a Peterborough asset. Still, I guess you know best

As usual with this sort of discussion where we try to dig out the facts we invariably get the idiotic element that can't be bothered to read things for themselves and simply want to mudsling. As I have said many times the sport has enough problems without people making more up as per the above post. The rules published are NOT open to all kinds of interpretation. Why not ? BECAUSE NO RULES HAVE YET BEEN PUBLISHED. I wish people would try to get their minds round that simple concept, as a first point. Secondly, for those of us that have bothered to read the SCB announcement its intention is quite clear. It says Summary of AGM in brief. I presume most people understand what a summary is and what in brief means. The discrepancy arises when we get to the Speedwáy Star interpretation of it. Now , it wouldn't be the first time that Speedwáy Star has got something wrong, in which case the criticism needs to be aimed at them, not the BSPA, but we don't know if that is the case at the moment. It will become clearer with time, but in the. Meantime spare us the usual old rhetoric about rule manipulation when as yet there are no rules (and the season is still 4 months away) Why do you presume Lakeside have two T1 riders? That could only happen if the T1 riders are not picke d and drop into T2 In which case they become T2 riders.