Barney Rabbit

Since the decision to split the money was made BEFORE the final Nicki only ever had £15000 (same as the other finalists) to do with as he wished. And that remained the same regardless of where he finished in that final.

But would Nicki accept a cheque for £60000, then give out cheques for £15000 to each of the other three finalists knowing he would have the tax to pay on the whole £60000 out of his £15000 cut? Or can someone out there clarify how the tax situation would work in this case. It's because of the tax implications that I can't help getting the feeling that someone other than the riders knew about the situation. However, it is just a feeling and I stand to be corrected.

True, but it was the promotion that promised a £60000 winner take all final, not the riders. It was Matt who stated that 'all the riders keen to bank the massive £60000' which was not the case. He failed to deliver the goods. I have no idea what he could have done about it, but I'm not a business man spinning what turned out to be a yarn in an attempt to get more people through the gate. Maybe his legal team should have thought of the possibility of such an occurrence and put something in the riders' contracts for the meeting to stop it happening.

No, they promised a £60000 jackpot to the winner.

Matter of opinion really. Normally, when all four riders are at the tapes and one jumps the start and goes through the tapes any of the other three can re-act and go because of him. In that case, the start-jumper is the cause and should be penalised. In this case Bjarne touched the tapes without knowing what was happening behind him so Crump can't be blamed for Pedersen's tape-touching. The tapes were down, he touched them unprovoked if you like. As I said, a matter of interpretation and I believe, whether you do or not, in the instance you describe, the ref was right to penalise Bjarne. The joke was allowing Crump a further bite of the cherry.

Got you. The ref never released the tapes and Bjarne touched them. Good call - 15 metre penalty.

Has it been disclosed why?

It might just be me, but run this by me again. If Crump was penalised 15 metres wouldn't he have been behind Bjarne? How would he affect what Bjarne did at the start line 15 metres ahead? Unless, of course, JC covered the whole 15 metres handicap before Bjarne dropped his clutch!

Does the same not apply to Nicholls then? Surely he had had just as many rounds to get sufficient points to automatically qualify and shouldn't have needed to knock another rider off in a run-off to get the job done. So yes, the finger can be pointed at Scott for Chris not being an automatic starter in next year's GP. Anything that had happened prior to that run-off is irrelevant to the issue in question - Nicholls' move on Harris that ended up with one of them on the deck.

You may be right, but this is hardly a falling out at work of the usual sort. Chris should now be able to relax, having secured his GP place for next year. Instead, he has got to sweat on whether or not he gets in with a nomination. If he does, he will ride with the knowledge that he isn't in the GP's by right - think it doesn't matter? Ask the riders. It's also possible that, should he fail to qualify again he may not get a nominated place because he has already had one. I wonder who he will blame this on, the ref? Well, it wasn't the ref that knocked him off of his bike.

You have missed the point of my posting. It was just a frivolous bit of band-width wasting. Sorry.

It was a cynical move, diving into a gap that wasn't there, deliberately engineered because he was on his way out of next year's GP series, and there was no way that Hans/Nicki was going to........Hang on, wrong rider, it was Scott Nicholls. It was a typical racing incident, nothing malicious, just both riders going for the same bit of track. If Bomber doesn't get the expected nomination for next year, it will all be the ref's fault because he didn't stop the race and exclude Scott for being the cause of the stoppage. Except it wasn't the ref who knocked Bomber off of his bike.

Hans Andersen says what most people are thinking and gets slagged off for it. Stekkers says the same thing when interviewed (between heats 20 and 21 I think) and nothing is said. Some folk will jump at the slightest chance to have a go at Hans, even when there's nothing to have a go at!

Commentators can comment on Walasek's 'injury' and other posters can mention it on here without a reaction but as soon as Hans mentions it he's spitting his dummy out! Balinski's four points won the WTC for Poland and his inclusion was iffy - why shouldn't Hans be allowed to mention it?

Cracking result for Richard. Shows how much he's improved this year to beat a field of this standard. Great way for him to finish the season.

Fine....in theory! BUT, would it be a viable proposition for some of those clubs Sean? I suggested this on a thread in the Conference League section a couple of months or so ago and was informed that this could result in Buxton being unable to operate. So I think you might be right Bryn!

Something I haven't seen mentioned is that the T/S rider's (the one that starts 15 metres back) points are also doubled so a team taking a hammering can score NINE (not shouting, just emphasizing) extra points. There's scope for some tactical riding there, especially for the bonus point, or aggregate win in cup competitions.

I was just after clarification because double T/Ss were allowed before and there is no mention of no double T/Rs now, just no T/R and T/S in the same heat. Thanks for clearing that little point up.

Thanks for the explanations. So a TR can be taken in Heat 14 (I can see quite a few of these happening). One thing that you ( or most probably the rules) don't mention is can both riders in one heat be nominated as TRs, giving a 10-1 heat win if they come first and second? If so, it would allow a team dropping eight points behind after heat 13 to try this. A first and second would give them a one point lead going into heat 15 instead of a four point deficit.

It was 4PM when I went there a couple of years ago.