Daytripper

Not surprised you think it's great stuff Sid , given your own record of abusing other posters, but the bottom line is this is a Speedwáy forum. Go back to his post #315 and you will see he has made 13 posts since then, not one of them constructively about Speedwáy and all of them sniping at other posters . Not only against forum rules it's pretty childish as well. Most of us would like to see the sport discussed even if you like reading boorish tripe .

Yes , more than enough. Half a dozen posts sniping at other forum members with absolutey nothing constructive to say on the thread topic (i.e.trolling as defined in forum rules ) followed by seven boring paragraphs about you and your boring wife and your boring son, it's far more than enough. You are not funny, not clever, just boring. Now toddle off and troll some other forum and leave this thread to those of us that prefer to talk about Speedwáy.

A quick look at the dictionary should answer that one for you. It's not difficult.

It was never called the Elite Riders League. Elite League is the correct term for it according to the dictionary. I don't understand nd why people are so dismissive of the term. For regular fans it doesn't matter what it's called but like every other sport or business it needs packaging and if that means calling it the Elite League to get Sky on board or newbies through the turnstiles so be it. I don't see what the problem is Nobody is knocking the second tier of Speedwáy, but if people are going to get pedantic on terminology it isn't the Premier League any more than Premier Inns are premier inns.

I am with Skidder on this one . I don't think the Poole report was any more or less biased than the Lakeside one on the Hammers website. All clubs give a bit more praise to their own teams, and always have done. One interesting statistic from the Poole website though was that this was apparently the Pirates first defeat in14 matches in all competitions , the last one being against Belle Vue at the beginning of August 2015 ! ! .........UP THE HAMMERS !

t Be fair Steve, she has made certain claims about other promoters and she is simply being asked to back them up. If the position were reversed and the same claim were made about Matt Ford you woukd be the first to ask for justification and rightly so. She is always doing this and it's only fair that she be called to account if she can't back up what she says. She does Poole more harm than good by spouting off these unsubstantiated claims.

I presume you didnt read Gordon Pairman's detailed post explaining why the SCB's method wasn't used and the reasoning behind the conclusions they came to. You might not agree with what he said, and there might well be worthy and constructive criticisms of his comments that could be made but brainless it wasn't and of all the people in speedway his understanding of maths, as a very successful accountant, is something more than rudimentary, and I am not speaking as either a Poole fan or a Gordon Pair man fan, simply pointing out a few facts. Its always a good idea to check out what people have said before you call them brainless. Constructive criticism is good for debate. Name calling isn't.

That, to my mind is the one serious weakness of the system and one which affected Lakeside seriously last year when Ashley Birks was injured. I don't think there is any way round it as long as you have an EDR system. The problem arises because, as I have always said, the gap between the best and the worst is two great. I thought Mick Horton was very honest in Speedwáy Star this week when he said that they all knew int was morally wrong to include riders like Newman, Howarth etc in the draft but it was done because of the shortage and quality of riders needed for the Elite League. This is the root of the problem, not enough quality riders gaining the experience for rapid promotion. This problem of shortage of riders seems to be being addressed. In the last couple of years youngsters from the training school have been riding at Lakeside before the main event and I have been amazed at the progress some have been making, like 10 year old Sam Hagon , but unfortunately it will be a few years before any of these are old enough or good enough to gi into the EDR. Until then we have to put up with an imperfect system or ditch it completely. I woukd say though that the order of the draft pick needs to be sorted. It is ridiculous that the team finishing top one year gets the best EDR the following year.

Is one of Davey's issues walking round with that ridiculous beard, or is he becoming a Muslim or a rabbi or something ?

A great spedway meeting but the most pleasing thing from a Lakeside perspective was that all the team chipped in, with a real all round team effort, and some really gritty tenacious riding. Even Rob Mear, struggling for speed held Ellis and Newman up for a couple of laps in the vital heat 12 so Kerr could get clear and take command of the race.After that, Poole basically unravelled . It takes two teams to make a good meeting though, and Poole are still a class act. This was no easy ride for the Hammers, they had to work for it.

Because he has five early season fixture clashes with his PL club which would mean missing Lakeside meetings if he wasn't doubling up with Richard Lawson. Jon Cook said they were going to get those out of the way first then review the situation depending on form so Ed might yet have a full team place instead of Lewis. Very difficult decision because Lewis on his 2014 form is a match winner, but he needs to get the Jawa going properly. His actual riding looks good to me but as others have said the bike doesn't seem to be delivering power in the way that it should.

Look at the predictions on here and in SS. In fact even Steve Shovlar put them bottom two at one stage. Personally I think Kelvin's influence will keep them off the bottom but we shall have to wait and see.

I agree with that assessment of the riders except Hans is usually a lot better than merely ok, in fact I would be delighted to see him as second heatleader for the Hammers. Despite Davey's form, it must be a good few years since he scored less than 7 at Lakeside, and the track suits his style perfectly. It is undoubtedly his best track apart from Poole. I woukd normally expect Hans and Daveyto score about 19/20 between them if Hans has 5 rides and Davey has 4. It is an interesting balance. Poole are widely predicted to finish top and the match is a must win for them if they are to establish an early advantage over Belle Vue and the rest. If they fall short of a win it will give some encouragement to the likes of BV. Lakeside are widely predicted to finish bottom two, but if they can see the Pirates off, or at least keep,it close I doubt that any of the others will beat them at home, and they will then have decent prospects of moving up the table. So there is everything to play for. Very difficult one to call because both sides have riders with question marks over their form just now but in paper I would say it's Pooles to lose.

Not quite sure what you mean by a "feeling" but Jon Cook said at the fans forum in February that Ed has 5 early season fixture clashes and Rich would tend to ride until those were out of the way then the situation woukd be re assessed on form. He also said there was a possibility that both would have a regular team spot, although that woukd seem to depend on whether Swidderski, and possibly even Lewis Bridger ride to form. Ed and Dave Kennet were both in the pits last Friday night supporting the team.

I asked him before the meeting last night. His answer is that he doesn't really know why, it's just that everything seemed to click. I suppose like a lot of things in life people work and work at something then one day it suddenly falls into place. He is a really nice guy. Nothing too dislike about him. What you see is what you get with Adam, but he gets a bit frustrated with some of the things said about him by people who don't know the facts.

In Dave Watts time at Lakeside he spent quite a bit of time with both Richard Lawson and Adam, pointing out the best lines etc. Richard learned by it, Adam appears not to have done. To be fair though, anyone who has followed Adams career knows that until fairly recently his big problem has been staying on the bike, and it's only now he seems to have mastered that aspect that he can make the progress that we all knew he was capable of. Adam is quite a tall lad for a Speedwáy rider and he has had to change his style quite a bit, he is now looking more compact and doing less of the Chris Holders. He has always been pretty good on the bigger tracks. That's part of the learning curve for a young rider, who is still only about 20 or so.

Adam is guesting for Josh Auty.

TBF I've always found Mick Horton alright to talk to. He's not my promoter so maybe I don't have the frustrations that Cov fans have but I don't think he is as bad as he's painted and there are quite a few that are worse. I think sometimes it's a case of give a dog a bad name.

That's a good comment about the track, coming from a neutral. I think too many people judge it from the past, as you say. There was certainly a fair bit of passing yesterday. Kelvin Tatum has an input on track prep and having ridden it himself at P&P he knows what he wants from it. I noticed he spent a lot of time with Richard Lawson at P&P and Lawson has been flying with at both meetings at home so far. He was also very hands on in pits with the riders. Too soon to say how it will all jwork out but so far Kelvin has been a much needed breath of fresh air in the club. Let's hope it continues. With regard to the Lambert / Swiderski episode, it seemed to me they c touched going into turn three and that probably unsettled Swiders. It was Lamberts third bite of the cherry in the same race though. I was a bit surprised that he wasn't put out the first time Swid went down and absolutely astonished that he got away with it the second time. With only three riders in the race AJ was already well clear and Swiderski and Lambert were the only riders on that part of the track so no way could have been first bend bunching, especially the second time. Swiderski was in front and Lambert took his leg away. Unfortunately Barbara Horley is invariably notoriously inconsistent with her decisions but fortunately it made no difference to the result so it doesn't matter.

I think there is no Plan B. My understanding is that Jawa's are trying to make a comeback and Revolution Speedwáy have some sort of tie up with Jawa as part of the comeback. I am not dead certain but I think these are not like the old Jawa's . The bikes look immaculate so it does seem like a decent professional outfit. Lewis B. said he wished he had a team like this around him when he was 16. It might take a little while for them to get totally dialled in but seems optimistic at the moment. Of course, we won't know for sure until they are on the track with others trying to beat them but two things about Lewis Bridger impressed me. The first is he has no fat on him at all and looks solid muscle. He has obviously spent the winter in the gym and not partying. Secondly when he was on the track he was trying different lines but there was one real head turning moment when he took his old outside line and absolutely flew along the starting straight into bend one, flicked the bike sideways and took the bend in a real classic head turning movement. Pure class. The talent is clearly still there, it's just a matter of getting his focus right and I get the impression he is on the way to doing that.

Press and practice today. Both Lewis' looked incredibly fit, both praising the pofessionalism of the Revolution Speedway set-up. LBR gets a bad press at times but personally I have always found him good to talk to. He does seem more settled in himself this year though and focussed so hopefully his talent will come to fruitition this year. Dennis Jonsson seems a bit tall faor a speedway rider but he seems a real nice bloke, as do most of the Swedes, His namesake AJ, the consummate professional had one of his Polish mechanics over as well as his English mechanic, setting up a brand new engine and needed about an hour more track time than the rest so seems to be making a real effort for the season. Apparently Belle Vue tried very hard to get him in the winter. On track it was difficult to tell much with the obvious testing etc, but Kim looked very stylish as always an pretty quick, as far as one can tell in practice, and although LBR was trying different lines when he went in his favoured outside line he looked very fast. Good to see Kelvin putting some laps in as well. It must be good for the team when they see the TM on track as well, proving that at 52 he is still no slouch. Still early days of course but it looks like the team will be getting along well with each other , which is at least a good start to the season. Definitely a feel good factor there so we'll see how they go when Kings Lynn are down next week. Its been a long winter........

Source of your information ? How do we know its fact and not a bit of unsubstantiated gossip you picked up ? What was the PL place that was scuppered ?

This is the problem when people jump into the thread without having read the article and start guessing. According to Johns, if it is an engine he built then the charge for labour in a service is £250 plus parts . He claims that if people look after the engine the overall cost is between £380 and £500 plus vat. So a half decent rider would earn more than that in one meeting. He pointed to an engine in for service belonging to Dave Watt that he built 5 years ago and which Watt is still competing on. He also referred to an engine he built for Greg Hancock last year that did 52 heats from new including a GP win and a podium finish. Johns then serviced if before Torun and the service cost £378, which, according to Johns is less than a rear tyre per meeting. The key phrase though is "if people look after the engine ". He says if people get water inside when getting careless with the pressure washer that can put another £150-£500 on the bill, hence the need for education. A lot of mechanical problems seem to be self inflicted by elementary mistakes in looking after the engine. There are lots of interesting comments about reducing power and titanium parts, but people need to read the article before making knee jerk comments.

Sounds like you don't want to believe anything that doesn't support your own opinion, but for those with a more open mind consider this comment from Kelvin Tatum. At the Lakeside Fans Forum in February Kelvin was saying that over the last couple of decades riders in general have become less mechanically minded. He said you get a lot of riders coming back to th pits after a poor race and saying it was because the bike was rubbish, but if ask them why it was rubbish they can't explain why. Similarly they come in after a win and say the bike was going great great but they can't tell you why. The point is if the rider himself can't explain what's right or wrong the mechanic has to rely on guess work so you get riders doing well one night and badly the next spending money to sort the bike out on guess work. Adam Shields always used say it it cost him £6k to line up against three blokes who had also spent 6k so why couldn't they all line up on bikes that cost £2k, and obviously there is a lot of sense in that, but it's not a simple case of sealing engines. What internal parts do you think are changed at a routine service or do you have no idea ?

Two of the points that came out of the fans Forum last week were firstly that it was Kelvin that made the approach to Lakeside to become involved, not the other way round. Kelvin was in the Lakeside pits a most Fridays last season, and as is known rode in the opening match. He obviously knows how the club works and feels comfortable with the promotion otherwise he wouldn't be there. Its not as if he needs the money so whatever was said I dont think it should be taken as bad mouthing the promotion or even voicing serious disagreement. Secondly, Kelvin was sitting next to Jon Cook and Stuart Douglas and nodding in agreement when Jon was saying they were trying to get around the fixture clashes but if they couldn't they would have to make adjustments at the top end of the team because they wanted to get it right from the off. So all in all I dont think much turns on what may or may not have been said. Tapes up in exactly 3 weeks and we will soon know whether the strategy is working.