1 valve

Because the owner of the stadium has no reason to fund or approve such changes?

Seems logical. Although we had a great summer weather wise, the start of the season was marred with a lot of rain and it appeared bend 3 suffered through poor drainage which left a good portion of it in a soft condition longer than the remainder of the track as drier conditions arrived. Subsequently, it was evident entry into turn 3 was affected by bumps no doubt caused by the inclement weather and less than comparable and satisfactory drying factors which the intended remedial work will resolve.

Agreed. But is there still the possibility of a conflict of interest arrising when the owner is the same? Or does the rule only limit promoters not owners in the same league?

isn't there a rule in place that prevents one promoter running/owning more than one club in the same league?

With a new Team Manager and Co-Promoter already on board for 2019 can anybody who is truly "in the know" shed any light on the owners intentions for next season in terms of staying in the top flight or dropping down a level. Whilst no doubt speedway fans will as usual have to endure a long winter of speculation and forum trolling as well as debate concerning the possibilities and merits of one league, two league or no leagues It would be encouraging to hear something regarding the Lions future intentions ASAP. Over to you guys

It was written by a well meaning fan but lacks data to base the assumptions for growth. i.e. “do this at this at x cost and you will get this y return based on the current z situation“ But some good observations made. Just not as comprehensive as the sport needs

Interesting read. However the way it is structured does not follow a format a consultant would utilise to cover such a topic. Also it is missing basic financial (past and future) factors so most probably been written by a well meaning fan rather than somebody engaged on an officially retained basis.

Stepping down, staying where we are? joining one big league? who knows right now? whatever the outcome it does look like there will be speedway at Leicester in 2019. Seems a good place to start, now to wait and see what develops over the winter.

i Isn’t Hans already a Poole asset? NBJ would be a good signing

Almost to a man in every race in the last 4 meetings (home or away) the Lions riders have failed to make decent start from the gate. in some cases they have been so far behind coming out of the second bend it has been embarrassing. There lies the problem. has to be the slowest gating team of all time. Please get it sorted.

They should. But to do so. Clubs need to provide seats for everybody and/or good clean open spaces with quality views. And pricing for 2 adults 3 kids @ £37.00 To be fair to the Lions they do better than that for the last bit. £34.00 cuz kids are free. Big difference is that 20/20 is well promoted at both national and local levels n

£15.00 admission gives the promoters £12.50 after VAT. So 880 paying adults would be required not 733 On top of the riders direct costs there is also. - cost of Fuel, Tyres, insurance and officials. Before all of that there is the fixed cost of stadium hire/running which in some cases of hire does not include maintenance (shale to start with) or cost of power and replacement/repair (air fence?) parts Bottom line, You need at the very least to double your projections of cash required to get remotely close to a being break figure, even for a promotion running at the lowest cost. Put another way, if you want to pay riders the level you suggest, in a full speedway meeting then you need £17k/£20k per meeting and hope there are no rain offs. then you may break even.

Ah good point, and to keep things consistent pay the riders in cash making sure they declare a lesser figure.. Tax man will never catch on and speedway will go from strength to strength

Have you considered the VAT implications? for £12.00 the promotion would receive £10.00 For £13.00 the promotion would receive £10.84

Poole do appear to have broken a speedway rule. So at the very least there should be an investigation to establish if there is a case to be answered. Clearly if the Environmental agency take action then there would cases to be answered on both speedway and environmental grounds.

Looked like the additional material which had previously been put down was helped by the heavy rain that fell during Saturday & Sunday to provide a much better racing surface. Sundays meeting being cancelled may have also helped although it looks like there are a few bumps developing going into bend three and on the home straight which made the bikes hop about a bit. Hope they can both be resolved soon because the racing was very good to watch once both sides got going and it would be great to see that type of improvement continue.

Lions have the wrong reserves. They should go back to Newman & Sarjeant (assuming fit and available) i.e. the original reserve pairing intended for start of the year Stats show that Lions would have heats with more race wins and fewer last places than current with these two. Many changing 1-5 's into 3-3's which is as good as a heat advantage by comparison.

Nothing should come as a surprise where UK speedway is concerned. In any case it looks like only the Bates family affected, so only Sheffield/Leicester would need sorting.

Not sure if you are just having a laugh - and happy to laugh with you at some of the rules currently in situ within speedawy But just in case there is a serious side to your post: How long would it be before a promoter who had an interest in two clubs was accused of showing favouritism to one of his clubs over the other or using both clubs to manipulate an outcome to the detriment of another club? So in the best interest of the sport, circumstances which could give rise to the above should be avoided.

Current rule is that a promoter cannot have an interest in two or more clubs in the same league.

Assuming that promoters would only be allowed to have an interest in one club in the "Big League" how many clubs are likely to be affected by a promoter having to give up his rights at one or more clubs AKA the Bates family at Sheffield & Leicester?

Riders retiring/none returnees are for the majority replaced by lower class riders or expensive/untried imports. Whilst neither are totally bad it does represent a higher attrition rate of 2 riders per club per year so dividing the 150 by 10 means we could at a stretch field 15 teams in one league. Assuming the current top riders are included

Good point. However, start with what we currently have as the first assumption and if that does not look right/won’t work then explore other options.

Can somebody provide an accurate figure illustrating the actual number of riders who have/are racing in the top two uk divisions so far during 2018. Then if you take this number and divide it by 9 (to allow for riders retired/injured/racing abroad/other reasons for not being available etc) then we would have fairly accurate idea of how many teams we could have in one league. This approach assumes we would still have those top riders like Doyley but there clearly would be a massive gulf in class between a teams number 1 and it’s number 7. If you want to remove the current top guys then you need to subtract 10 from the number of riders currently riding (the first number I referred to)

yes plenty.