Barney Rabbit

David Howe won the Conference with Peterborough Thundercats in 1997, the Premier League with Panthers in 1998 and the Elite League treble in 1999, again with Panthers.

Been broached many times on here before. Consensus of opinion among the faithful seems to be that they won't notice so say nothing. But if they do notice and ask questions tell them to shut up and watch the racing. Works every time - just looking at the sport's growing popularity tells you that.

I can answer that. I was told on here by an ex promoter when I stopped going after following the sport world-wide for forty years, that I was never a speedway fan in the first place.

Went to a football match at Fleetwood a couple of years back and got talking to an elderly gent in a local pub who told me that he'd watched speedway way back at the club's Highbury ground which was around the football pitch. Still the same ground but much modernised now he told me.

Only went to a couple of league matches at Wembley and wasn't impressed but the couple of big meetings were something else. Saw some great racing then - or maybe I thought I did because of the occasion.

Having read that speedway has always used guests I decided to check up how many the club I supported used in their formative years fifty years or so ago because, for the life of me I could only remember them booking a guest once (for a #1 riding in a World Championship round) and permission to use him was withdrawn when the opposition complained. Anyway, they used one guest all season in their first year, none at all the second year then back to one the third year. They averaged less than two a year for the twenty years I've looked back at. So yes, guests have always been used but not in the sheer numbers they are now, culminating in the stupid situation of a 'team' turning up with five guests, one of their own riders and utilising R/R for the seventh team member. Maybe it's the number of guests being used these days that's putting some off rather than guests per se.

Correct. They added bonus points, calculated on a percentage performance basis, to those scored in the Final. These points were the rider's actual scores from his qualifying rounds worked out as a percentage of the max possible points he could have scored in those rounds divided by seven (the number of qualifying rounds there were).

1987 in Amsterdam saw a third format for deciding the World Champion, each rider having 5 rides on two consecutive days. After day 1, Sam Ermolenko was leading with 13 points from 5 rides but the eventual winner was Hans Neilsen with a 15 point max to add to his 12 from the previous day, Sam dropping back to fourth over-all with 24 points. Doesn't make much difference to the discussion but I can't remember it being mentioned yet so thought I'd just mention it now.

Could also be that Holder is moving out of the area.

More to do with cheating than Mr Ellis. Can't remember exactly what happened but wasn't it something to do with illegal payments?

I'm on about 'a different competition with different rules' because that's what I answered a post about a while ago.

You keep seeing your opinion of what might have happened had last Saturday's meeting been run under the old system as fact and I'll keep believing that, after five rides each, two riders had scored more points than Woffinden and we'll keep it at that.

More relevant than most of your 'comparisons' which are nothing more than supposition and yes, opinion, since there is no way one can actually put the riders being mentioned on the track together to find the real answer. At least, last Saturday, what I posted happened.

We're having facts, FACTS even, thrown at us to back up the pro argument but now conjecture is fine if facts hold up the anti argument. Woffinden came a purler with nothing on the line - he had two further rides to get the points needed to finish in the top eight - so why should we suppose things would have been different if the ride was important. More pressure (at that time, anything that happened in a sixth or seventh ride is irrelevant) could have affected him adversely, we don't know. What we do know is that, after five rides, Woffinden had not scored enough points to have won the Championship. FACT

But under the old system he would not have had the opportunity to do what he did when the real pressure was on because he would not have had those extra two rides. The meeting would have stopped after all riders had had five rides, Woffinden finishing third with ten points, five points behind the meeting winner.

I prefer the cut-and-thrust of a one-night event, get it wrong and you lose, if your bike packs up, tough, man and machine are a unit in the sport we used to have, to the 'oh well, I've ten other goes to get it right' competition we have now. That's a no brainer. We both have differing opinions, not wrong ones.

But he has to at least win one meeting - the final. Now it's possible for a rider to be champion at every GP but still not win the World Championship. Highly improbable agreed, but possible. So, in the old system, a rider has to win that last meeting to be WC. In the new system, a rider can win all the meetings and not be WC. One is undisputed fact, the other an improbability.

I've stated a rider can become World Champion without winning a meeting which is a point against GPs (in my opinion) I've also said a rider can win a meeting without scoring most points which again, is a point against the GP system (in my opinion) In the older system a rider had to score most points (or equal most and win a run-off) to win the meeting to win the Championship. So could not win a meeting by scoring fewer points than a rival (as Tai did today) at the meeting so could not be Champion without winning a meeting. Where's the contradiction?

Really? Tai proved otherwise today and Poole could well prove otherwise (again) in a few days time.

Thing about GPs is that one can win the World Title without winning a meeting, or even making half the finals. Whether that's right is down to opinion.

On The Chase yesterday, after the question 'what sport uses motorcycles with only one gear and no brakes' (which was answered correctly), Bradley Walsh added that he used to go.

Yes, that's probably what will happen now. But if it was regular practice the #8s would have ridden several matches by now and would have come in at reserve with the reserve moving into the team. That would have evened things up and given NL riders experience at the higher level. I remember a time when many #8s could hold their own against lower order riders in league matches but that was when they had second half rides firstly against their peers and occasional rides against better riders if they won their junior scurries. They were used more often in league matches too back then and guess what, there were more riders coming through the system to hold down places in BL teams.

Was Teesside a county in the early/mid 1970s when Middlesbrough rode as 'Teesside Tigers'?

That, unfortunately, was always the danger when Sky started their regular transmissions that the ones you mention would be joined by speedway attendees staying away from the tracks and getting their fix on tv. It made the break for me and Mrs R easier when we decided enough was enough after the events of a few winters back. That only lasted a few matches though before we gave the whole thing up - in this country, at least.

Rune