stewmac

And yet, much lower crowds...

For me at least, Josh has been one of the biggest problems in this team. With two newcomers to UK speedway in Joel and Max, Josh was relegated to the reserve position and we were assured he'd be some sort of secret weapon - one of the strongest reserves in the league was what was said. Instead, we got a guy who, it appears, has learned little since he arrived back at the start of 2017. Then, he could gate probably better then he does now, but was prone to rushing in and crashing when a cool head was all that was required. Admittedly, he seems to crash less this season, so that's something, but his gating is appalling and he regularly spends 3/4 of the race catching up with the guy in 3rd before making a "great pass" on the last lap. For those who think this is fantastic, fair enough, but if this guy was serious about his so called claim of wanting to be a heat leader, he'd be actively seeking out advice from those riders who can gate, and he'd be spending the time after each meeting working on improving his technique to ensure he actually improves. He'd also be practicing as many days as he can at the likes of the Duns track to make sure he can get his gating gloves sharpened up. Does he actually do these things? I'm not sure he does, but I do know from various folk who are close to him that he comes across as frustratingly arrogant and dismissive when given exactly the advice I have suggested above. He seems to believe he is perfectly capable and the fans would rather see his thrilling chases. Well, maybe some would, but I was hoping that the secret weapon at reserve would actually turn out to be just that. So far, there is little evidence of it.

I'd say there are still at least two very shoogly pegs. I hope so anyway.

Before the season started I thought Glasgow were going to wipe the floor with everyone. Must be hell of a frustrating for their management and fans to see them losing again and again.

Once Bewley showed up, it would appear so.

Thanks. Long time ago now though. Goodness, Dudek was convicted much more recently for drugs and seems to have been forgiven well and truly....

Strange that if they were concerned that the silencer wasn't legal, they didn't have it examined.

What was the issue regarding silencers?

Yes, I agree Gorzów's racing seems poor compared to many other matches. I'm going there for Gorzow v Leszno at the end of July and I hope it's a better match than many I've watched this season so far from there. Not sure what can be done though. Maybe the scheduled live matches will sway towards Tarnów in the second half of the season, especially after their stunning result against Leszno....

Well, surely it's up to the TV production team to decide which are the most attractive matches to show live? Just because they don't show Tarnów's matches so often as others isn't bias, it's business sense as they want the most viewers. That's TV mate. And especially as they also film the matches from Tarnow and show them later you can hardly complain. Or can you?

But as I've said already, they usually show Tarnów's matches in a condensed program on a Monday show. I have an nSport box and I've watched it several times. I'm watching the British Final on BT sports right now but I can tell you that nSport are showing the Tarnow match at this moment! See below, where the Grudziadz match is also being shown...

While it's not shown live often, it has been shown in the heats-only 30 mins highlights match on Mondays several times on nSport. Perhaps the fact that it's also the narrowest of the Extraliga tracks is something to do with it, as it doesn't generally produce as good racing as the others.

Certainly Sportowefakty website made it clear on Saturday that (in their opinion) the track had been doctored by Phil Morris by soaking it and therefore ensuring it was very different to how it had been earlier in the week when the Polish lads were spending hours on it.

Yes. Much cheaper. Typical Extraliga entry prices are around 45 - 50zl - which is around £10.

Did you read my post correctly? I was not talking about "Polish stadiums" - I was talking about Wroclaw and more specifically Wroclaw THIS SEASON. Please do go back and read carefully what I said....

Including the fastest time of the season!

Don't understand quite why you say Good God! I have followed the discussion from the very start for weeks and months. Perhaps the valid point that I didn't put across is that Poles would have made up the most sizeable portion of the attendance had the stadium been full. They knew the racing was going to be good no matter what the event but they did not feel attracted to the format. On here, I'd suggest the majority of posters are from the UK and yes they may have changed their minds but even if every one of the regular posters on here attends next season's final, that would only swell the audience by around 300-400. I will say again. I don't see how you are going to change the Poles' attitudes towards the format simply by saying it produced wonderful racing. They ALREADY KNOW that Wroclaw produces wonderful racing!

Poles have been watching the racing from Wroclaw all season on TV and in person. The stadium is full or almost full every league match. It's been quite outstanding this year. Why would it have been any different for this? The stadium was hardly half full either day, suggesting that even though they knew the racing would be great, they didn't want the format. I don't see how that will change....

Point is though, had it been the WTC final being held at Wrocław, that would also have produced wonderful racing. To say it was down to the format being g used is simply being naive. Wroclaw is one of the top 2 tracks in the world, the other being Czestochowa.

Absolutely spot on.

Let's look at other televised motorsports, of which speedway is one, and see. Rally: No F1 : No Motocross: No Superbikes: No Other car motorsports of which are shown on TV: No In fact, I'd be interested to know if ANY other motorsports follow this ridiculous rule at the end? Can you imagine the uproar if say Lewis Hamilton had won every F1 race all season and was then forced to have a sudden death race-off at the end to see if he really was worthy of being champion? It simply would never happen, as the TV and public would ridicule it and the sport would lose all credibility. So, not quite true I'd say...

So far it certainly has not delivered much apart from Freddie's great pass on Doyle. Otherwise a total non event.

Interesting... https://www.glasgowtigers.co/tigers-owners-strike-major-deal-team-gb/

Strange how Nigel and Kelvin through all the discussion about missing riders from Denmark, that is Pedersen and NKI, have never mentioned Leon Madsen who surely should have also been considered? ....

What a load of tosh excluding Karpov. He did nothing wrong there in heat 19.