Roger Jacobs

At last! The end of a short, drawn out season. Best bit has to be Nikolai Klindt collecting a winners medal and the wooden spoon.

1962! About as relevant as your comment 🤡

That is not a complete improvement, because it’s quite possible for a rider to cross the inner edge of the track with two wheels at different times - they could easy say “2 wheels at the same time” to remove any potential ambiguity.

Your wording was "both wheels had gone on the line". Also, you've ignored the point I've made about the SCB Regulation being ambiguous. It doesn't say "both wheels at the same time", nor does it say clearly what constitutes the wheel(s) crossing the line. The ambiguity of the Regulation is exactly (ironically) why there has been so much debate, and why the referee made the decision, which - according to others with a different view of the ambiguity - was wrong. This latest SCB shambles proves that they must have been the brains behind VAR.

The Regulation says, splendidly ambiguously: "012.1.11 Leaving the Track A rider whose machine crosses the inner edge of the track with 2 wheels must be disqualified ..." It doesn't even say "with 2 wheels at the same time", which is what everyone interprets the regulation as meaning. Even so: "...it's been explained that both wheels had gone on the line he therefore left the track." is totally incorrect. If that was the case, riders would be excluded in just about every match.

Typically poorly written SCB Regulations, open to interpretation. There have been announcements that the Regs were being reviewed - clearly nothing much has been done. Also, why do the Regs allow an appeal to be made, given that the Regs themselves don't provide options for the Referee's incorrect decision to be changed?! The SCB has a lot to answer for.

Lemon took the more measured of the two options, knowing that if Zischke continued his good form then he could have six rides anyway. Otherwise, Lemon was looking at Zischke being forced to take 7 rides, and Cairns 4, with Blödorn having to take the R/R in 12 (with your benefit of hindsight, apart from an excellent gate & go in Heat 5, Blödorn's only other point was ahead of Killeen - and he would have faced Etheridge in 12). It's all about scenarios and options - I thought before the meeting that Lemon had made the correct choice to use a guest, and it was proven to be fairly successful.

You'll never know if it would have been easier. R/R was only available to Blödorn and the reserves. If the Aces had then had other problems on the night, they could have been stretched unnecessarily. As it is, Zischke was able to take two extra rides (in place of Cairns and McDiarmid).

The tracks haven't changed much. One day the fans and more importantly the riders will understand and accept that it's the super-tuned engines which make the bikes behave differently, lurching with relatively small changes of grip.

Never, ever any problems for me. EE full fibre, with WiFi to my iPad.

To leave Monday 19th as the next possible staging date? Or maybe some of the riders have got their flights booked ...

To be fair, Thursday 15th probably kept free as another home date for Sheffield, in case they need to call it off again on Monday ...

Man City vs Ipswich then ... with the huge crowd expected for the second leg, the Aces wouldn't be able to use the Etihad car park for overspill parking ...

Entirely subjective.

And the point I've made is that perhaps they haven't got lucky. Fricke's average has dropped dramatically - and it can be argued that for such a good, proven rider it shouldn't have fallen like that (more than Brennan's has fallen at Ipswich, and he's had a terrible season according to most). Fricke's average was still too high to guest for Holder in away matches until 1st September, so there must have been a great deal of luck involved to get it low enough ...