Daytripper

So , a week has passed and Philip Rising has still been unable to state the grounds for his assertion that Kelvin has been disappointed by the attitude of riders that think they know it all. The reason he is unable to elaborate is because it is not true. Absolutely disgraceful for a professional so-called journalist to make these comments while breaking the first rule of journalism which is to find the facts. I spoke to Kelvin on Wednesday night and he confirmed his position is as stated in the previous programme, namely he wants to await the outcome of the AGM on team and league structure before making a decision, and its nothing to do with riders . If it was anything to do with riders then clearly he wouldn't need to be waiting around for the AGM before deciding Mr Rising is never in the pits himself to see what goes on and its a pity he doesn't act like a proper journalist and check some facts before making these knee-jerk comments.

Vatch has been a good servant and passionate supporter of junior Speedwáy but he was not well suited to the role of team manager at the top level We all know that and in his heart of hearts he probably knows it himself. As a result he did attract his fair share of criticism but there is a difference between fair and justified criticism and vitriolic abuse and your attacks were often in the latter category. Neil is not a horrible person and doesn't de serve personal abuse of that kind. If you want to give criticism then you have to be able to take yourself, and TBH a lot of your language was OTT , as others have said, and for that matter it often is on here. Please think about it.

Because Jon Cook thinks he knows more than the trackstaff. There has been good racing all season when he didn't interfere, now he puts his oar in and this happens. Inexcusable. Even more inenexcusable because he has interefered in the past and the team have suffered because of it. Well done to Belle Vue though. Good team, good TM , kept the same 1-7 all season and didn't cheat . Especially well done to Scott who well and truly rolled the years back. Well done to Lakeside as well though, after the Speedwáy Star pundits predicted a 7th place finish and most forum experts were saying 6th/7th place , so overall the team did better than most people thought.

I don't think anyone has really mentioned Charles Wright much so far. He had less experience of the track than anyone else in either side last night, not having ridden there for 7 years. He still whacked in 9 paid 10 from four completed rides, including a win over Richard Lawson, and only scored 1 point less than both Lakeside reserves between them. A really good effort. Wouldn't mind him at Lakeside next year if he didn't have a Friday track in the PL.

Always the same problem when you get a bunch of Aussies in the same team. They are great when things are going well, but if something upsets one one of them and he starts kicking off they all start moaning and their heads drop. Holder and Doyle are the exceptions. A track that everyone says produced good racing last night.

Work is in progress on the track. The forecast is cautiously optimistic. http://www.lakesidehammers.co/10-30am-track-update/

Do you seriously think Kasprzak comes any cheaper ?

He is not a Lakeside asset He said years ago that the only British club he wants to ride for is Lakeside and so far that has proved to be the case despite the fact that every EL club had an interest in him at the start of this season. As you say he has ties there as well. He has always got on very well with Jon Cook and Stuart Douglas. I think he said on his website that he woukd be out for 6-8 weeks. Effectively that means his British season is over. There is some suggestion that he may ride in the GP on 24th Sept, which may or may not prove to be the case, but riders, ride in GP's when they are not fully fit. I don't think he will be doing any other leagues though.

Believe it or not some people actually love the sport and enjoy being involved. The Incident Recorder, Clerk of the Course, Pit Marshall, Machine Examiners, Pit Crew , Start Marshall, and Track Marshalls are almost always volunteers . You get the best and the worst of people in Speedwáy. Unfortunately the worst are a small minority that cause a lot of trouble for the rest.

Plenty of people in Speedwáy have two jobs. The programme lists him as Team Manager, he signs in most weeks as team manager, and he makes the decisions on reserves switches etc. He also acts as coach as an extension to his job as TM.

I can see why people think you and Gavan are the same person. The programmes, including the latest one, 2nd September list the officials and state both Kelvin and Jon Cook as team managers. To all intents and purposes Kelvin is the one that does the job when he is available, otherwise it's Jon Cook, and as I said, on one occasion Paul Hurry. The coach part is in addition.

, He is, but it was made clear at the outset that his media work comes first. If Lakeside are racing on the same night as a Sky broadcast Kelvin does his Sky commentary and Jon Cook stands in as team manager, although on one occasion recently Paul Hurry stood in as TM.

I agree. Great rider on track and really nice guy off track. . One of the best. Hope he makes good recovery. He has already had a fair bit of damage to the collar bone area in the past and there is only so much the muscles around there can take. I hope we haven't seen the last of him in the EL. Love to see him back at Lakeside next year. Looks it could be the final straw for his GP career , and the end of Lakeside's chances of making the play offs.

No doubt that is what he is trying to say but he is making a sweeping generalisation without knowing all the facts. Unless he has been in all their pits and knows what is inside the engine he is in no position to make that statement of fact. I did hear that Jason Doyle struggled financially in his first GP year and maybe he struggled a bit with his EL equipment at that time but that's just what I heard so I can't say from my own knowledge. I did see Emil Sayfutnovs bikes at close quarters when he rode for Coventry a few years back and belive me they were pretty much state of the art at that time. I've also seen the way AJ prepares at P& P and talk to him and his mechanic a fair bit and I know everything he has is immaculate, and provided by a sponsor anyway. It always was the case that some top men cut corners on equipment, but you can't generalise.

I am not quite sure of the point you are making then, apart from saying that your knowledge of what Mark Loram did or didn't do 15 years ago somehow applies to all riders today. We can discuss forever what is meant by "best " engines, but it's horses for courses. The best on one track and one type of material will not necessarily be best on other tracks. Most a average EL riders only have two engines and anyway. I remember Chris Louis saying that he had ridden Tony Rickardssons bike and it actually wasn't all that fast,but crucially it was set up in such a way that Tony could hang onto it and get the best out of it on UK tracks, and that really is the crucial thing, being able to get the best out of the bike according to conditions.

You do talk twaddle at times Gavan. If you don't think Holder Iveson or Jonson are not pulling up any trees check who is top of the averages. In addition Jonsson is joint second highest bonus point scorer at Lakeside, and shepherding partners hold on top of riding at No 1 takes some doing. As for engines you really don't know what you are talking about. The engines tuned for EL tracks are generally unsuitable for Polish tracks and vice versa. AJ in particular spent a fortune on engines and tuners when he returned to EL racing last year. If you saw the equipment in his van you woukd know the man is an absolute perfectionist who doesn't cut unnecessary corners. The others are much the. Same otherwise they wouldn't be at the top . As for mechanics You can't expect them to fly their Polish mechanics over every time they come but when AJ returned the the EL last year he did bring his two Polish mechanics with him to show his Lakeside mechanic how he wants things done, and his English mechanic is himself a top man who has spannered for Greg Hancock among others, so there is no question of dumbing down. You only have to look at who the sponsors of these top guys are to see how good their equipment and preparation is.

Very perceptive. One of the classic ways IMO in spotting a rider who is down on confidence is when his foot is constantly UGoing down along the straights. Speedwáy is a funny sport. There can be lots of things that undermine a riders confidence, sometimes coming back from injury, sometimes being unhappy at his club, sometimes other things. I don't doubt that Troy is down on confidence, but I very much doubt that he is throwing away points (and money) to keep Swindon out of the play-offs which is what Hagonshocker was claiming.

Isn't that a bit unfair ? Richard Lawson was well below par, only scoring 1, but it's not in his interests to see Lakeside lose. These things happen in Speedwáy. Troy is obviously having a tough season, either due to his injury or maybe not being very happy where he is. It doesn't seem that KL is a very happy ship these days. Troy has his ups and downs but I very much doubt that he would throw away several hundred £'s worth of points money just to spite Swindon, especially as he might want to be back there one day. As Davey Watt used to say "Happy riders score points " . There doesn't seem to have been a good vibe in the Kings Lynn side for quite a long time now.

Kings Lynn have r/r for Lambert. Robert Branford guests at reserve. Full squad for the Hammers, with Ben Morely in for Rob Mear for the remainder of the season.

That's not what you were saying in the first place. Riders who ride the same sort of line sometimes get in each other's way and then have a little spat when the adrenalin overflows. I've seen Ivesen and Lambert have fall out over it . Ed and Lewis had an issue over it a few meetings back but Kelvin and AJ had a word and it was sorted before the next race. That's rather different to you saying Bridger affects team spirit by spouting because he doesn't. As I said before, if anything he keeps himself to himself most of the time between races, as some riders do. Peter Karlsnson and Adam Shields for example were a bit like that as well. Bridger might divide opinion on some things but it's wrong to suggest he goes round spouting off, at least not more than most. You want to hear some of the Aussies sounding off when something upsets them. Lewis has a good team around him now, in Revolution Speedwáy but has more than a handful sorting the horrible Jawa out without going out looking for trouble I can assure you.

Well why do you keep do you keep doing it then ?

With respect you have probably never been in the Lakeside pits and are talking rubbish. Bridger is not really a team player and may never be but he doesn't go round spouting off as you claim. If anything he is the opposite, a bit of a loner generally keeping himself to himself between races. Much calmer in himself these days since he took a year off to sort his life out. Actually if you get him on a one-to-one he his good company. I don't know about this supposed massive home advantage that non riders go on about but are unable to define. You seem to have made your mind up about that, but Neil Middleditch, who has actually ridden it called it a thinking mans track . Kelvin Tatum when asked about it at the last fans form said something similar. He said it is a very formidable place to come to because you constantly have to be thinking two steps ahead , and a lot of riders are beaten in their minds before they even get on the track , but those that apply themselves mentally tend to ride the place very well. Not everybody's cup of tea, admittedly, but as Adam Shields once said, was just as hard for him to go somewhere like Wolves and to gate first and stay in front as it is for Wolves to come to Lakeside and do the same.

KK has seemed like a dfferent person the last few years. I had quite a long chat with him last time he rode for Poole (which must have been 2013?) and it really struck me how different he was compared with how he used to be. He just seemed very relaxed and very polite, very pleasant to talk to. He used to be under his fathers influence quite a bit but it's as if he has become his own man. Whatever the reason he is a much nicer person than the old KK, and I think a lot of people base their opinions on what he was like in the past. Overall he has certainly been a better servant of British Speedwáy than the majority of Poles.

PVA glue has only been used on cricket pitches in fairly recent times and as far as I know it is only permitted for one day matches. As I understand it, the glue is only used in the wicket area and its purpose is to bind the surface together and to stop it deteriorating over the course of a match. It doesn't seem to be anything to do with waterproofing the pitch. In fact as a water based glue it seems to me it is likely to dissolve if you put it down on a wet track. With regard to track covers I think people are under estimating the square meterage of a Speedwáy track which would taken a lot of covering. It takes manual labour but obviously the time taken depends on the number of volunteers available. A lot of tracks struggle to get enough track staff as it is ( when did anyone last see a full squad of track rakers at Coventry for example ?) and to get them to do a lot of heavy lifting would IMO be a bid ask. You can only push volunteers so far . Before people start shooting from the hip about all this it seems to me to be more sensible to wait until we know more about how big these things are and what method is used to put them down and pick them up.

Yes, in heat 11 AJ said he thought the tapes went up unevenly. Unfortunate about the track. Jon Cook did apologise to the fans, and said it was getting difficult to know which weather forecasters to trust these days. I checked BBC weather in the morning and it said heavy showers from about 7 pm. We did actually have about 3 short showers during the meeting but they were quite light and as the track had been deliberately under watered in anticipation of heavy showers there was not enough rain to dampen the dust. Re the Mear/Sarjeant episode, Gary Havelock never phoned the referee to complain so presumably he or his rider never thought Mear never touched him. Yes it's correct about Branford. He was to all intents and purposes standing in KK's shoes and on his average hence he was in the No1 race jacket. Kennet's passes round the outside in the last few meetings have been brilliant. He must be due to move up to hearleader anytime now.