Steve Shovlar

Simon Stead is not up to GP quality racing and was found out last night. He still has a few years left to improve a bit more but last night he was all over the place and found wanting. Louis seems to be a lot of peoples choice, and his current league form is good. Whether or not he has wha it takes to cut he mustard we will find out. Lets be honest enoough to say that of TeamGB manage to make it onto the podium tomorrow night, that must be seen a a huge victory.

The track was a mess. Once the dampness had come out of it and it went all blue groove Team GB struggled. As this event is being held in the UK, the track should be setup to suit us Team GB boys. Get a load of dirt down and make it a bit grippy. It will be our chance to have some advantage.

Shazzy, I can take it then that you and VV will never be bed buddies?

I haven't got a ticket either but will head up there and take my chances. Pretty sure anyone who turns up will get in. BSI won't want to turn away cash! If they do find the place full, they more the fool them for holding the event on an allotment. Worst stadium in the elite league by quite some distance, with a very small capacity. Shame I can't make it on Saturday, but if Team GB do sail through tonight, then if I was aiming to go I would buy my ticket this evening at the "stadium".

Been thinking about this. Now Shawn Tacey has tried very hard in his time with us, but at the end of the day he has scored roughly half what DD would have scored. It hasn't really worked out, and that's through no lack of effort on Shawn Tacey's part. He has busted a gut to try and score as many points as possible and there has been no dissent in the crowd because they can see he has been trying. But perhaps now is time to call it a day. And perhaps this other rider is a replacement for ST. He has a low average so there isn't many riders out there to fill the spot and score points. Other than Freddie Eriksson?

Just got back. Meeting finished at 10.30!! Long drawn out affair played out in front of a tiny crowd of a few hundred. Notes of interest. Klindt best rider on display tonight by the proverbial. Had an ef whist 100 metres in front in one of his rides. In the ashworth race he missed the gate behind Wilson and Asworth. Got passed Wilson but Asworth was 50 metres clear. Closed it up to nothing off the last bend. Ashworth rode well, and equally deserved to win. NO EFs. It rained for 5 minutes very hard which delayed the meeting for 1 hour. Rumrs were sweeping the stand that Crump had arrived to watch and was organising a rider boycott due to the wet conditions. Track went good after several heats. KK totally not interested in the wet conditions and pullled out of he meeting. Not goods enough. Might have an important meeting tomorrow, but there were paying fans tonight to be entertained. Tacey not at the races really. M&M need to sign Klindt immediately. Super prospect.

Some great racing tonight although the meeting was long and drawn out. Step forward Lindback. Star of the show with some amazing passing. Last to first in one heat, stalked Gjedde in another before getting him on the line in a photo finish! Wall of death ride in another. The lad is showing the world who will be at the top in a couple more years. Looking forward to going up to the allotment on Thursday to cheer on the Brits!

Smallmead is probably the worst stadium in the elite league and will be a huge embarressment to all when the final is held there.

Well done to Antonio!! Also congrats to all other qualifiers. I bet Pop Kennett is not too popular at the moment with his son.

Not sure I understand what you mean by Lindback tailing off. He is improving by the week and now has a 9+ elite league average, and is reaping the rewards of a Jawa sponsorship. Brian Andersen took 9 brand new engines from Lindback last week! The boy is going places. As for Adams, he is a great rider, who lacks that extra bit of aggression when it matters. he should never have surrendered his second place but was bullied out of it by a young lad with a fraction of Adams experience. Tells a very clear picture.

Been away for the best part of a week and came back this afternoon. After suffering the football I decided to watch the GP in fast farward mode, and I was glad I did after the first few races showed the track to be a bit rough to say the least. All night there was nothing on the outside and when riders tried to go around they either fell off ( Trick and Nicholls) or made fools of themselves ( Crump and a few others) Having said that riders soon found that sticking to the white line was the way to go and it did produce some great races, mainly Bjarne and Lindback in the semis with some passionate riding. Come in Hancock and Adams, your time is up! Lindback in particular was worth the admission fee, showing older, more experienced riders how to do it. Adams just didn't have an answer to Antonios riding and surrendered his position with a little waive of the white flag. Unfortunately Antonios lack of experience showed through in the final when he chose 4 instead of three. Still, the writing is plainly on the wall for all to see and this year is a big learning year before he makes a real attempt at the title in a couple of years time. Bjarne did well for third and Andersen showed BSI what a mistake they made in leaving him out of the series. I am sure they will make sure he is in the lineup in 2007, regardless of whether he qualifies or not. Overall a pretty good GP and this time Crump didn't have the luck of an EF or fall in the final to give him an undeserved second chance.

Source is this weeks Speedway Star.

I see that the 100th GP is to take place at Cardiff, as the first GP in March 2008! A dangerous move by BSI or one to get the season started with a bang?

40,371 is the offical attendance. Add to this all the freeloaders and there was probably 45,000 in the stadium.

Andersen should never have been left out. Iversen is not really good enough and that was a silly error on the selectors in chosing him over Andersen.

I was hoping BV won the playoffs last year, as they finished top.

The whole problem with the method they used to decide who went through to the final is floored. The scoring is 4,3,2,0. So after the second bend, a team decides quickly to let the rider in front go, and settle for a heat winning 4-5. Thats the whole point of pairs. Beat the opposition by riding tactically. No need to win the race as second and third win the heat and see you qualify. Alegedly. So a teams scores 21 points, and ties at the top with another side. What happened when the two teams met? The team more tactically aware team rode out the guy at the back. While his mate went on to win the heat, they lost the heat 4-5. Great tactics. But no. The team that lost the heat 4-5 go through, because the team using tactics and winning the heat didn't have a rider win the race! Winning the heat now doesn't count. Oh but wait. It does again in the final. What a pile of crap.

Rob P, BV won the final fair and square, nothing wrong with that. The gripe, and general consensus from fans from other clubs, and putting aside personal insults aimed in my direction, is that they shouldn't have been in the final in the first place. I watched the meeting with my finger on the fast forward, and when Poole came to tapes in the final heat I thought, second and third are good enough here, and was shocked to discover that what should have been common sense yet again has been blown out of the water. And Rob, I didn't care one iota who won the final. All I can say is I am glad I didn't waste £20 plus fuel going to this shambles. And Ian Thomas. What a nice guy telling the fans of other clubs to "get stuffed". Jerk.

Jesus H Christ how many usernames does Ouch/DAC/oneofclubs need? Must be the air up there. They all say the same thing in more or less every post. Everyone knows Poole were robbed of a final place because of some muppet making up daft rules.

So Eastie, would you have still been laughing if that had happened to Eastbourne? No you would be fuming and rightly so. Would think a high percentage of us on here think the same.

Just watched it on timeslip as I had visitors around. All I can say is that this tournament sucks C*ck big time. What an absilutely disgracefully stupid rule, that Pirates didn't go through to the final because of the way some idiot designed the rules. Poole finish level with BV, so common sonse would say, what was the rsult when the two clubs met. Poole won. So Poole go through. Easy eh? No hold on a minute. Thats too easy! We will go with race winners! What the f*ck? Sorry but Poole should have been in the final, and looking at it would probably have won beating Ulamek. Thank god I didn't waste my money by going. Absolutely farcial and more embarrasment on Sky. Belle Vue should not have even been in the final. Rant over.

Agree with you on Stead. Sorry to say he was well out of his depth. How many years will we have to wait until we have a competitive british GP rider again? Nothing currently on the horizon.

Whilst I agree about the track being poor, I disagree about the attendance. If that crowd was 30-35,000, then in previous years they have been around the 20,000. There was a much bigger crowd yesterday, and by quite a lot. A couple of years ago the third tier down the back straight was very sparcely populated, with no one in the top 30 rows. Last night it was fans all the way to the very top, and although there were empty seats dotted about, it is still very good news that the crowds are growing well. Now if they can sort out that track...........

Well that was easily the biggest speedway crowd at Cardiff by quite a few thousand. The upper tier is now really begining to fill up and give it a couple more years and that 62,500 will be a realistic target. certainly we would get the placed packed out faster if there was a decent Brit about bt at the moment nothing to get excited about.

What are you on about? I answered a question that was asked about who was riding and responded to a quesion asked!