Happy Hunter

Which is free or course. You could also think about having a dip in the Leisure Centre swimming pool or a spin on the roller skates while you wait although I am not sure what time it closes.

I'm a member of the 'not so young anymore' brigade. I park up at the shopping centre car park just before 7.00 p.m. It takes about 10 minutes to walk up to the track and possibly about 5 minutes to queue up to get in and buy a 20:20 ticket or two. So I am in position at about 7.20p.m. at the latest which is in plenty of time as you are lucky if the first race starts before 7.40/7.45 p.m.. So, even on a bad night, I am away from the car park well before the four hours are up. Its different of course if you want to have a drink with your mates either before or after the meeting but that's a choice you have to make.

It would be nice to know why its going round! Us old stagers know that if the tractor comes out unexpectedly its usually because the riders have asked for the track to be graded but new comers don't know that's why. It really is all about communication and not guess work!

This all boils down to a continued lack of communication between the promotion & crowd. Why did the match presenter not mention why the start was delayed and why the tractor went out after heat 2? Most fans would have understood. There was only one delay due to a crash but the meeting took 2 hours to complete (from a 7.45 p.m. start). If you allow 5 minutes per race and 15 minutes for an interval that gives a meeting time of 90 minutes add another 15 for crashes and that means a meeting started at 7.30 p.m. should be over by 9.15 p.m. How many times has that happened at Beaumont Park since 2011? I don’t think any Lions fans will find anything positive to say about this result. Doyle did well to get up from the deck and win heat 13 but he will know that 10 points from 5 rides by a number 1 at home is not good enough. Schlein probably scored more points than Michelsen so the score might have been worse if the latter had ridden. Walasek is o.k. when he makes the gate so 8 at home was probably about what we can expect from him. Woznak was right off the pace. Pedersen did not show up. He has won 2 EL races now, 1 home and 1 away and has not scored in his other rides. Sorry – not good enough. Auty does all that is expected of him and a good job too when you look at Lambert’s performance. He was just like he was when he rode for the Lions in the Premier League – reasonable gate and then picked off on bend 3 or 4. Cannot understand for the life of me why they signed him. On this performance I cannot see anything but a basement battle again.

Has anyone else received a duff copy of the Star this week with pages either missing or duplicated?

I agree that the meeting was well run - took just 90 minutes (but no interval) but thought the presentation could have been better. E.g. presenter only started introducing Leicester team as they left the track and no explanation of how the National Trophy competition works or what teams are in it. I was pleased to see Max have a good win in the fastest ride of the match.