1 valve

In the “long run” I’m hopeful that there becomes a sufficient number of professional promoters who get together to drive the sport as a business profitably onwards and upwards. That said, there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge before that becomes reality.

The various Polish leagues have many British, Australasian, Scandinavian, North American & Eastern bloc riders appearing every week. Nevertheless the organisers continue to create aspirational circumstances for their own nationals to aspire to albeit not many actually reach the top echelon. There are some Uk promoters who do recognise the value and benefit of developing home grown talent, Unfortunately the others do not know how to take advantage of such opportunities and they are more or less the same group who are involved in running the sport as a hobby.

The inclusion of JD would have exceeded the cost budget for riders. Might not be what you want to read, but at least you have a promotion with long term sustainability in mind. A professional promotion not a hobbyist.

Here’s the problem with your suggestion. Developing young riders (good) at low cost (bad) simply means that once they become good enough, the big Polish money will attract them there leaving the UK to be nothing more than a source of talent. The answer for UK speedway? A feeder system based on a semi professional league providing a route to a limited number of full time professional teams/promotions. Could it happen? Yes . Will it happen? Only if a certain profile of promoters smell the roses and step aside.

You’re absolutely right about the number of missing weeks. But also consider that other teams also had fixtures on the race nights you have quoted (although not all) which impacts the ability to run fixtures. Clearly, an increase of teams would help (even if only two) to provide more regular fixtures in both league and cup competitions as well as the possibility of each club running one individual event per season. Unfortunately at present, there continues to be an impasse between the (minority) professional promotions who would go with one full time league and the (majority) hobbyist promoters whos intransigence continues to hold back any chance of UK speedway moving forward.

And have a league of eight teams who would still only have Monday & Thursdays as race nights.

Yes, it’s interesting that the Stars are the common denominator in these instances. Maybe just a matter of fate that Lions were able to quickly rearrange the fixture with the Witches but not the case with the Stars for either of the two postponed fixtures, at KL or Leicester. The former which (as it turned out) was not affected by inclement weather. Maybe having to share their fence with Northampton is playing its part.

You are absolutely spot on with teams historically having alternative race nights. These were used in order to catch up on the fixture list at a time when there were far more teams in the league too. Thus Lions had Tuesday as their regular race night with Friday being the “back-up”.Now they seem to race the majority of the time on Thursdays leaving Monday as their “spare”. Unless I am mistaken only the Lions, Aces, Stars & Witches have this flexibility generally available. Meanwhile, fair play to Lions & Witches for promptly sorting out the revised date.

Very laudable, but also consider in the event of a rain off, a stated free week for the home team is not always the case for the away team who may have a home meeting themselves or away at another club. Fair to say most weeks where a meeting is not scheduled is a free week for rearranging rained off meetings aka Lions v Witches. Done. Very strange to punish a team for them having to postpone meetings due to factors beyond their control I.e the weather.

But, if the answer to meetings being postponed is to award a point to each team rather than rearranging the fixture, then this would result in even less meetings and larger gaps between those that do take place. In this instance Lions & Ipswich have promptly rearranged the fixture so no real issue.

Ok, so whilst your post is made up of generalised assumptions & accusations the plain fact is that in this instance come the intended start time the track at Leicester will be unavoidably unridable.

You maybe right but not quite. 6500 is the maximum capacity for the NSS. Find a facility with a larger capacity and the fans will come.

But sadly only two of the clubs listed now remain!

Sufficiently enough to have caused the meeting to be abandoned had it gone ahead?

So, is it raining yet and if so, heavy enough to justify the meeting being postponed?

Agreed. However at the time of the stoppage Kemp was well clear and was on his way out of bend two last lap sufficiently clear that there was little chance of him being passed. By rerunning the heat he reset circumstances which is his right to do but on this occasion was wrong to do so.

Agreed. However at the time of the stoppage Kemp was well clear and was on his way out of bend two last lap sufficiently clear that there was little chance of him being passed. By rerunning the heat he reset circumstances which is his right to do but on this occasion was wrong to do so.

He fell, quickly picked his bike up and got to the infield wth the leaders more than half a lap away. Then the ref put the red lights on! Absolutely no need to do so. As it turned out it was the only bit of luck that went the Lions way. Congrats Foxes on your first win. Well deserved .

Yes. Next two meetings to prove he’s capable otherwise & subject to JT or similar being available, he’s gone.

Great episode. Dan comes across very well indeed. Though surprised he didn’t get his collar boned plated in UK. There is a very good consultant surgeon based in Leicester (private) who would have done the work inside a week.

The riders?

Have a read of the first post etc.

Whilst I understand the points you make they are not actually correct. The concept of arriving at a final was to provide a winner takes all climatic last race rather than trip up “the favourites”. Consequently, as you say today’s system means those riders not making finals face a mountain to climb. Which of course is what happens with the leading (minority) riders more often than not making the finals, leaving the majority to scrabble up the mountain.

Whilst I understand the points you make they are not actually correct. The concept of arriving at a final was to provide a winner takes all final race rather than trip up “the favourites”. Consequently, as you say today’s system means those riders not making finals face a mountain to climb. Which of course actually happens with the leading minority of riders more often than not making the finals leaving the majority to scrabble up the mountain.

Which currently means a rider finishing tenth after heat 20 could actually win the GP. A bit like having a main course taken from the freezer warmed up in a microwave and falsely served up as a freshly prepared dish. But for now - the GP format is what it is. I for one hope it is revised for the better next year if for no other reason than to remove the opportunity for Tatum to keep abbreviating Last Chance Qualifier. LCQ’s sounds like something he should take medication for. “Here comes the LCQ’s” - pass the medicine.