GregoryM

Two matches in 5 days at Belle Vue really shows the daft the guest rider rule we have to endure:- Match 1 Fri 2 Sep : Patrick Hougaard rides for Belle Vue and Danny King rides for the opposition Match 2 Wed 7 Sep Whhops, not sure what happened there!! Anyhow:- Two matches in 5 days at Belle Vue really shows the daft the guest rider rule we have to endure:- Match 1 Fri 2 Sep : Patrick Hougaard rides for Belle Vue and Danny King rides for the opposition Match 2 Wed 7 Sep : Patrick Hougaard rides for the opposition and Danny King rides for Belle Vue

Yes, spot on re: google maps. I'm don't know whether there has been an arrangement made with the cinema for their car park for the World Cup Weekend - £5 passes? - but since the NSS opened they have not allowed any parking for those attending the Aces / Colts matches. At the entrance to the car park on Hyde Road they put out a notice stating that parking is not for speedway patrons and have their own stewards at the entrance. They also have stewards at the car park exit on Kirky Lane to stop people sneaking in through that way. The notice did say (not sure if it stll does) that anyone found parking and attending the speedway would be charged the appropriate fee - so I once asked one of the the stewards what the fee was. He told that there wasn't actually any system in place to charge a fee and his job was to stop people entering and to direct them to the speedway's own car parks.

Indeed - and still we await a team to arrive at the NSS for an Elite League match wth all 7 of their own / first choice riders!!

Setting aside the reasons why, speedway once again shows how full of integrity and serious professionalism it has by allowing this scenario to happen within its rules:- King's Lynn are at Belle Vue on 1st July and are without (amongst others) one of their own team members Robert Lambert. Just 6 days later, on 6th July, Wolverhampton are at Belle Vue and include a guest rider, King's Lynn's Robert Lambert!! And I wonder if King's Lynn might be checking the Wolves scorechart tomorrow to see how many Jacob Thorssell scores. 20 days ago on Wolves last visit he scored 10 6 days ago guesting for King's Lynn he scored 1 I'm sure all connected with the Stars won't be too impressed if he bangs in another double figure score tomorrow night?

Haven't seen the full lines ups for this yet, but if Wolves are missing Kylmakorpi then it continues the run of this season's Elite League matches - this will be the 6th (I think anyway) - where either the Aces or the visitors have at least one of their own team missing for one reason or another.

Isn't Ben Barker part of the Bees squad? If R/R is a bit hit and miss, why hasn't Havvy selected Barker? Probably down to his form I suppose. Bees are not due at Belle Vue again until early September, so a lot could happen between now and then. One thing's for sure, Bees will need to start much better at the NSS than they did in their first visit, and Bomber will need to score more than he's done on his already several visits - after the Aces septet he must 8th in the list of appearances made there.

I think Belle Vue - or any other team - has every right not to allow their riders to guest for play-off rivals. And it can hardly be described as a stunt to look after your own interests. But the comment about guests being 'a sad part of speedway' is absolutely correct. It is sad that injuries & other absences will possibly decide who wins the Elite League title, just hope its not exacerbated by other factors and we never get a repeat of the Peterborough v Reading fiasco.

Nope, it's all fact. No fiction involved at all in my explanation!!

Sorry, been away for a few days – but you ask why the league table is ‘a work of mysterious fiction’. FICTION 1. GUESTS In modern day speedway our teams are, for whatever reason, increasingly NOT racing against their opponents’ declared 1-7s, with guests being employed in numerous matches week-in, week-out. Infact, whenever there is a match without any guests and / or R/R it is noted as being somewhat remarkable. Last night’s postponed match at Belle Vue, for example, was set to be the Aces 13th home Elite League match of the season. Had it gone ahead, the 13 matches would have seen the opponents arrive at Kirky Lane with 12 guests and 2 operating R/R. In another example, in the four Belle Vue / Lakeside matches this season there were 12 guests used and 2 R/Rs!! What makes the situation look even sillier with guests is that you might see a particular rider at your track guesting for an opponent, but is then absent when his own team visits. Or your own team has a rider missing at an away track, but then he appears at that track guesting for someone else. The choice of guests is, quite understandably, made on a ‘horse-for-courses’ basis wherever possible and a team may well have a guest rider in its line-up at a particular track where he performs considerably better than the rider he’s replaced. So if the ‘real’ Team A isn’t taking on the ‘real’ Team B the result can hardly be ‘real’ and so have little credibility. The result is likely to bear no resemblance when teams are full of guests to what it would have been with their own riders - so the result becomes a work of fiction of sorts. 2. DOUBLE POINTS TACTICAL RIDE RULE Yes here we are again - but if a team ‘wins’ 47-46 by virtue of using this rule then in reality out on the track they’ve actually lost 44-46. What is worse is that if their opponents are the home team, they’re considered to have ‘lost’ and get no match points at all - despite scoring a real match winning total of 46 points out on the track. Absolutely ridiculous!!!! And yet more fiction. MYSTERIOUS The mystery is how supporters continue to have the patience to put up with it? It certainly isn’t doing any favours in attracting new supporters. Over the years I’ve taken several ‘first-timers’ to speedway and, for the most part, they’ve enjoyed the spectacle. Get onto explaining the rules and answering their questions about team line-ups and they soon lose interest. I took a couple to a double header at Belle Vue last season (I think it was last season) and two riders were riding as guests for one team in the first match and then for their own team in the second – the couple were very confused to say the least and just laughed in my face when I explained things to them. ‘How on earth can you take speedway seriously’ they asked. I really didn’t have an answer. Anyhow, I’ll continue to enjoy speedway match by match and try to put out of my mind just how a team has been cobbled together for that particular night. It's not something to agree or disagree on, it's not opinion. The current guest / double points tactical ride systems make the league table a 'mysterious work of fiction'. No if's or buts about it. 　

Doesn't that sum it all up - 8 JUST 8 teams and there aren't enough riders. Injuries aside, it is getting beyond a joke and approaching the point where it doesn't really matter to me who wins the Elite League. There'll have been so many 'false' results due to riders missing through the doubling up rule, riders allegedly going awol, the double points rule and the guest rider rule regulations 'manipulating' who actually teams can book as a guest anyway. I actually enjoy watching a speedway match and try to put out of my mind how the teams have been cobbled together for the night - if it I couldn't then I wouldn't bother going. As for the league table....its a work of mysterious fiction.

I suppose we'll agree to disagree on whether the current rule is the fairest - or perhaps I can't see the wood for the trees on your use of ' ' around fairest. I do, though, certainly agree with you about the underlined points.

Are there any other kind these days?

He certainly looked competitive at Belle Vue last Wednesday night anyway.

A very good point IMHO. Haven't thought about all the consequences - although the FTRs might be problematic - but what about this for something different? Have the 'A' fixture as now, but use the old 13 heat format and, like in the Polish Ekstraliga, have two nominated races in heats 14 & 15 in the 'B' fixture. Go the whole hog and replace the tac ride with the old tac sub rule and choice of gate positions between riders, or for a team to choose to 'swop' the gate positions whilst they 6 or more points in arrears. Yes, riders still could still end up meeting 3 times, but at least it would mix it up a bit and have the 1 & 2 and 5 & 4 partnerships reinroduced to ride together for possibly more chances of team riding. Just something to think about or to be pulled to pieces by other posters!!

Very logical - perhaps too logical for those that make the decisions. It makes sense - injuries aside all supporters in Elite & Premier should then see their own team each week.

3. Teams to be limited to 1 current GP rider as the norm. or if a team wishes to have 2 GP riders then team points limit reduced by 2 points. Creates a more balanced team v team structure. Doesn't really make too much sense to be honest. There are plenty of non-GP riders equal to (and arguably better) than some of those currently in the GP series. There's been plenty of non-GP riders beat Matej Zagar around Kirky Lane this season and only last week we had a Premier League rider guesting at Kirky Lane beating Chris Holder. Having two GP riders on 8 point averages doesn't make your team any stronger than having two non-GP riders on 8 point averages - so why penalise the team?

Like Batch was probably lowering his average to get Ward into the Robins team this year.

Well there's certainly nothing wrong with your sense of humour!! And I think you're mixing me up with someone else. I am not and do not know 'KKS'.

I don't think so - my friends to whom I refer weren't even born then. I for one would take the old tac sub rule over the double points tac ride rule 1,000 times out of 1,000 - no matter for or against my team. A tad sensitive there aren’t you ‘theblueboy’? Who said anything about the Robins making up the rules? You could substitute any team name for Swindon, King’s Lynn and Belle Vue – and the point I was making would be exactly the same. The double points rule is an utter joke and complete farce. It is an absolute travesty that the Robins lost the KO Cup to Coventry and an even bigger one that Reading were robbed of the League Championship because of it. As I said, I know of a number of people to whom it was the last straw when it was introduced and haven’t attended since. Yes, the Robins were on the brink of getting three points on their last visit from Kirky Lane – but it was Batch & Kildemand getting in a mess and Zagar passing them both that lost the Robins the match that night. It might have been unlucky, but it was part and parcel of speedway racing – and nowt at all to do with some mickey mouse rule manufacturing points. I’m looking forward to seeing Darcy Ward in action when the Robins visit Kirky Lane again later in August - and if Swindon win that night ‘fair and square’ without having to use the tactical ride then no complaints and fair play to them. I’ll take no delight if either team teams by virtue of using it though.

Absolutely couldn't agree more. Super Scotty Nicholls - the man simply just never gives up. OK, he might not score too many maximums anymore, but some folks have been saying he's not on form lately. Not sure where they get that from, the last three home matches he's notched 30 (paid 33) points. As for Poole doing a bit of 'average manipulation' last night - then that, if anything of the sort was going on, can only be considered as cheating the paying public including the hardy few Pirates fans at Kirky Lane last night. I'm not sure myself, I think Belle Vue were just too good for them on the night.

Agree all the way - plus the 'manufacturing' of extra league points like Robins did at Lakeside helps. Only 17-7 down and using a Double Points Ride in a match that they'd have won 47-43 anyway!! Rewarded for being rubbish early on. Yet at Kings Lynn shortly before that Belle Vue were never enough points behind to employ the Double Point Ride and had a 48-42 scoreline (and a league point) turn into 49-41 scoreline (and 0 league points) literally yards from the line in the last race. No reward for keeping a close score all night. It may be the rules but it stinks and one reason why some folks I know don't go anymore.

Really? Well Scott 'only' got 6 paid 8 last home meeting and 13 the home meeting before that - both scores above his current average Is that really poor form?

No news on official website, but the Latest News headline as shown on the Belle Vue Fans Forum is that tonight's meeting has been postponed.