weatherwatcher

From the video the track seemed to be rather dry and dusty. I hope they get it better than that on the night as I can see it causing a lot of problems by the time they get to the latter heats with the track breaking up.

SCB you have made the right choice there. The only way you would be able to run the British final there would for it to be run either a couple of months before or at the end of the season. I would think the cost of running the British Final there would be far more costly than what they would take on the day, Would they have the same crowd levels for a British final as the GP, don't think so somehow, there are people who go to the GP who nevr go to any other speedway event and it would be just drawing people from the fans that support the clubs. So I think a British final there would be run at a huge loss.

The way things are going in the EL there will be clubs struggling to keep going for much longer anyway. Saw the meeting last night on Sky,, no I am not just a TV viewer either but go the the Lions, this year has been a complete disaster for me due to illness and I have only managed to get to 1 meeting this year and I really cn't see me getting to many more this season. But to see crowds like that on the TV is heart breaking, the clubs must be at a state of not even breaking even. The same was the week before where you could have easyily have counted the crowd level, if they had kept the cameras on the crowd. So where are they going wrong, from the few posts on here, it is a weekly thing at Lakeside, how long can they go on with such poor attendances, what have they done to keep all the loyal fans away and ar e they doing anything to bring new fans in. A great setting, shame about the rain but it did get some good racing when the sun came out. Will they be riding in the EL next season or are they going the way of the others and dropping down a league or 2. Or will they just close up shop, if they did it would be another sad loss the sport. Because the way things are going, speedway will be gone within the next 10 years

It has now come to the stage where something has to be done to bring down the costs of the general run of the mill rider. If they want to be competative, in the PL and EL then they are going to have to dig deep in their pockets, to get an engine to stay with the top riders who are spending silly money. Time to standardise all the engines, make the GM a package as with the Gerhard and make them stick with what they have got.Then will then see who is the better riders or is it the engines that win the races. The sport is getting so out of hand. Let them spend all the silly money they want to on the engines for the GP's it would be no different to how they do it in the moter racing world with the F1. That is why they brought in the Renualt and other classes of racing to make the sport easy for those with less cash to play about with. iF THEY CAN DO IT THEN SO CAN SPEEDWAY

This is a first at Cardiff and something that should have been done all the previous years. Lay the track well before hand, then before the gp. get a bunch of young Brits to spend the day tearing around the track to hopefully sort out any rough patches and also bed it down a bit. Shame that don't do it on 2 or 3 days and give 40 or so young riders to go round there for the day. Maybe then we would see a temory track that actually races well. Fair play to them, I don't give a monkeys who riding there, but it is a great honour for them to even get the chance to ride there, just perhaps one day, it will be one of them that gets to ride in the GP's, if they just keep pointing them in the right direction.

I can't the point of being a half lap or more behind the actual racing, and doing stunts on your back wheel, like you have just crossed the line in first place. What is the point of it. If you are not prepared to come to a meeting to race and win, then just hand in your colours and find a team that wants you, that is if anyone would bother taking you on board the club. Doubt it very much. I know what I would do with them If I managed the team,

That is what was said on the SCB website, so by the time he gets back and fit to race again the season will be almost over for him. The problem lies with the fact that they are now calling on 2 guest reserves, some of the ones they have been getting are not just not scoring the points, it was a good job the main team did so well on Saturday, because the 2 reserves could well have cost the meeting. When you are up against the 4 clubs that have reserves that are scoring double figures at most meetings it makes the reserves a laghing stock, when you see some of the meetings that the 2 of them are coming away with over 20 points between them. It is time that they where all chosen on a level basis. Not 2 lads that are winning mettings for them.

I just hope that the Lions have now turned the corner, they deserve to do better than they have this year, they have been plagued with problem after problem. Not sure what average he is coming in at, we will find out on the night he rides no doubt.

Get rid of the tactical rides, get rid of the ridiculas double points, the tem with the most points wins the meeting as it should be, not by a rider scoring 6 points to bring the score closer. or win the meeting. As for bonas points, yes it is a team sport and if 2 riders are out there riding as they should as a team and stopping the oppostition from getting more than 1 point, then the rider in second place should get the bonus point added to his average. This is now why the see team speedway, being raced as an individual race, the riders go off from the tapes like rockets, they don't give 2 hoots if their team mate is behind them trying to fight off the 2 opposite riders, when he should be there to help his team mate to get the much needed second place to make sure the team win the meeting. Far to selfish, the way they ride now, the art of team riding is almost gone and forgoten, there are very few riders who even realise that they are 2 riders who should be racing together, not for 1 rider to zoom off to the front while his poor team mate battles against the other 2 and end up scoring nothing, when they could have got a much needed 5-1 or 4-2. So yes the bonus points should count, that is why you now see the young Aussies getting the win at all cost so they can get their visa the following year. Lets add the points teach them how to team ride and stop all these stupid TR and Double points, because a win is a win , if a team is 10 points behind, then the team that are in front well deserve to be there,

The fault with the Lions is the fact that again 2 overseas riders come over here, not really making a great show, but Mikleson did start OK till his accident, then when their home leagues started they did the magic disapearing act. Plus the Lions have had one inbjury after another at one point they where down to 3 home riders, now they have a full team, or almost as now they have lost their 2 reserves. It is very hard at times to win meetings when you are having to call on so many guests. Just hope that now they can get things moving again, when do we expet the reserves back, I think Auty is out for most of this year.

Thanks for that. Will keep my eye on the internet to see how things are going. Luckily I come home on the Friday before the meeting after a week in respite care. Saturday is out, but I should be there on the Sunday to give my grandson his first taste of Grasstrack, we go to see Leicester Lions, so it will be good to for him to see a different aspect of the sport.

As I said in another post, I am sure someone at the Lions has killed a black cat or something like that, because if anything could have gone wrong his year as with last year, it has happened. 2 riders who may has well have stayed at home instead of signing for a British team, there heart was never in it, then the Bridger signing plus all the injuries. Lets hope that with the new signing that we can now come back into winning ways, but please until the 2 reserves come back, don't lets have a pick like the 2 we had last night. How the hell Hall got into the FTRD I just can't figure that one at all, thought it was to develop the young riders not some old cart horse, but it is wrong when teams like Cov and plenty of other teams in the EL are running riders in reserve placings that should be in the main team placing bewilders me. It shows again that having 2 reserves that go out there and win a meeting for you must and very quickly have the rules changed, as to who they are using in the reserve postitions.

To late for the Lions to hit the top 4 places but they could now well move up the table a few places. After all the bad luck they have had this season, it would be nice to see them jump off the bottom, they don't deserve to be there. All the right moves where made at the start of the season, but it just went a big belly flop.

A close call this one, I hope for Coventry's sake that Josh Bates can jst for once manage to stay on his bike, he had a terrible season last year for the Lions and spent more time picking himself off the track than actually finishing a race. Not sure what it is with him not enough strength in his arms have been one of the ideas put forward by riders last year and they told him to spend the winter in the gym building his body strenth up, what I have seen of him this year he is still spending a lot of time on his bum on the shale instead of the bike. Zengota rode well for the Lions when he guested for them last time. SO YES IT COULD BE A VERY CLOSE CALL.

This could be a very close meeting an awful lot depends on how well Masters rides, we could do no worse with the 2 reserves who have come in. So I say a home win and a long overdue one for the Lions

I hope tht when the day arrives, for the British GP, that all the riders have cooled down. Nikki needs to think a little bit more about his fellow riders, and the other riders also need to calm down some, what happened the other night has now gone, I hope that we see no revenge extracted by any rider, as doing so is otally wrong. We don't need to see any rider, pushed into the fence, because one of these days it will end very bad. So I hope that all this talk is forgoten and they come out and ride a good meting. Any rider who pushes another in the fence at the up coming one or any others for that mater, should be taken out of the meeting and also given a 2 or 3 match ban. It has to be stopped

Have the amount of GP's that the top riders race in these days, altered the whole attitude of modern era speedway. Nikki will do what ever he can to get to the front, even if it means taking out his own team mate, or pushing him off line to get in front. A personally think that with them riding all these individual meeings hey have tottaly lost the art of what the sport is ment to be, because when they get to race wihin the team system of the sport, all they are noe interested in is getting the win at all cost, there is no regard a all for their team mate. How many top riders can actully race with their team mate instead of against him, very few. One rider who has team riding of to an art is Greg, he will take the inside line to help his own team mate secure a win, with no going storming off, and then having his team lose poins because he failed his own rider. The modern era of speedway has now urned into a very selfish sport. One rider who sands out amonst the younger riders and one rider who I have pointed out on the forums for his stupid behaviour off the track is Darcy Ward. The amount of times I have seen him riding with Chris Holder, who is clueless, about tem riding, with Darcy rying all out to help him, with him slowing down and taking the inside line only for Holder to follow in his wheel racks, wih Darcy throwing his arms up in disgust at Holders riding. Yes the days of team riding is a dying art. Nikki would never think twice about cutting up his team mate to get to the front and get the win. This is the attitude of a great number of modern day riders. The Danes seem to excel in this with most of their riders have his I must win at all cost attitude. I still think this boils down o the fact, that they race far to many individual metting in a season, so when it comes the time to ride in a team, they can't get out of the fact that they are no longer riding alone, but with another rider who is here with them to score enough points to win a meeting. One rider can' do that on his own, he needs to get his team mate to score as many points as he can, you can't do that by blasting away in front and being half a lap away from the rest of the action, with your team mate being taken to he rear by the other teams riders. After all when they go out they go out as a team not 2 sepearate riders, who are out to score the win. There are 2 forms of speedway individual and team riding and the riders should be able to swap from one style of riding to the other, but they fail to do so. As I said it is far to selfish these days, with the I mos win at all costs.

Can anyone tell me if Burton & leicestershire grasstack club. have folded, been looking for their website but can't find it also the facebook and twitter account have ceased to be. They have prommised meetings at Donnington and called them of and only seemed to have a couple of meetings if that a year. It would be a shame to lose a club that is so close to me. All the others are to far for me to travel to being disabled and I suffer from lots of pain in my neck and back, travilling any distance is a no no. Where is the nearest club to South Derbyshire, ie less than 30 miles away. Would love to take my grandson as he loves his speedway, it would be nice to take him to see some grasstrack for a change. Elite league speedway these days is pricing its self out the market, the last meeting we went to at Leicester Lions cost me £60 by the time I took my diesel, admission, programme and coffee into consideration, it is something that I find hard to go to very often.

Greg has hardly had any problems from other riders due to his excelant starts, he is way infront and left the others standing, that is what has won him so many races in his life time. I think now that he is getting older his reaction times are that bit slower and he is now mixing it umonst the other riders, so he is now having to race much harder to get a win, most times he is now in second or third place, his bikes seem much slower or is it just Gregg not sure. With all that said Nikki rides like a lunatic at times, some of the moves he makes the other riders are very lucky to not have been taken of on a streacher, seen him so many times with riders getting to the point of fisty cuffs with him. One day he will go to far with the dirty moves he makes. I don't think he has the respect from any of the top riders. Just hope that if he fences a rider one gay that it dosen't end that riders career, they race for the love of racing and don't need to put their lives at risk because some idiot can't seem to care one bgit about the other people on the track, at times he races like he is the only person out there. He is a danger on 2 wheels. They have to put a stop to riders fencing other riders before something nasty happens, it is getting worse year by year. saw some hard racing in the 60's 70's and 80's but evn so the riders had more repect for the others on the track, can't say Nikki gives a toss about who he tries to fence on more than one occasion.

I have made the claim time and time again, hat the fencing of riders, wheter they get hurt or not, must be stopped. The refs need to step up to the mark and the rules need to be changed, before someone is badly hurt. Any rider who fences another rider should be banned from the meeting. He should also face at least another 2 match ban. Hopefully with some hard rules in place, the riders will think hard and fast about, putting other riders into the fence. We see it happen time again in the sport and it needs to be nipped in the bud. Nikki does put bums on seats, do we need to have him threaten the saftey of fellow riders though from his dngerous and over hard riding practices though.

Things are going from bad to worse, it has not been the best of seasons so far for the Lions has it. Just when things seemed to be going ok, then the rot started to set in with riders leaving and riders being injured. What chance have they got against Coventry who have 2 of the best reserves in the league, and both the reserves out through injury also they are haveing to bring in a 6 point PL rider, not a team to give much hope. Just hope that things can be brought around before the season ends.

How things are going in the Elite league, they will be finding it hard to put a proper 3 man Elite team together. Take the 2 reserves out of the game and we are left with the 5 riders of the main team, who most of the time are scoring less points than the reseves if a team have 2 solid ones in place. It is getting rather stuppid when a team have to relay on their reserves to win meetings for them. The main 5 riders in the team are now made up of, a bunch of overseas riders who are having their first season over here, or ex world class riders that are coming to the end of their days, one good rider per team and the rest is made up of PL riders. And this is supposidly the Elite of British speedway, don't think so sme how. Put the best of the bunch of the reserves in the main team next season, there are 6 or posibbly 7 riders that should make the grade, there may even be enough of them to go to 1 club each, what they did last season should have given them a main team place this year, but no the promoters just dither about and hold back these riders, from getting the lessons they need to be part of a elite group of young class British riders, hold them back any longer and the talent that we have now wil be lost. All because the promoters would rather have an worn out rider or a un tried overseas rider, than give these young Brits the place that they have earned. On another bad note, it looks like the Lions could be withou another rider for the next meeting, with Simon Lambert, crashing out at Perter borough, suffing concusion and bad bruising, it said on the SCB site he could be out for 7 days, can things get any worse this year for the Lions.

Other than SKY and Eurosport there is not much TV coverage to wet the appetite of speedway fans. Just wished that BT sport would step in to cover meetings from the PL and NL, SKY give us maybe 2 races a season from the PL and their coverage of the EL is well down from the weekly showings they gave us when they where sponsers. If SKY pull the plug, would another broadcaster step in to cover the EL.

I don't know if Robert is to late to get a place in this years final, if not he deserves it he is probably the second highest ranked Brit under Tai. there are a lot of young lads in there and a lot of old stagers who have been around British speedway since time immoria, I personal think that after a couple of years time we will see Bomber going down the team places as he just starting to get a little long in the tooth now, and he dosen't seem to have that little bit extra when it comes to racing abroad against the worlds best, I think his glory days are over. He is now to old to make a revival, Cook never even made the big time and don't think he will, so it is now up to the young bloods coming through the ranks all be it at too far a slow pace with them being held back again this year at reserve. They have got to give these young lads all the help they can, because they are the future of British speedway, so why keep messing around using riders that have been in the GB team for far to many years and have still year after year failed to come good, when up against the worlds best. Time to look to the future, not the past.

TMW. I agree with what you have said about Wozniak, lets hope that he wants to ride here again next year and that the Poles will let him carry on riding in the UK for another few years, he was a great risk and one that paid off. The riders that you named in the FTRD, should have been moved up to a full team place this season, it was a farce that they had to stay at reserve after they proved their-selves last year. The teams that have these strong reserves are now the ones at the top of the league, with these riders at times being the ones who are winning meetings for them with points of 15 regularly. The whole system needs changing, next season, with riders in the reserve berth, being the ones that need bringing on, not the ones who are doing far better in a meeting than your main string riders. It is now time that the whole structure of the EL was looked at long and hard. Hopefully if they really do this we will see a league that live up to its name, not the league we have now, which is far from EL. Riders from Europe, have also got to be looked at, they need to stop them from coming over here and using British speedway as a free meal ticket until their own leagues start in Europe. They either need to give full commitment for the whole season or not bother.