The Cheese

For a start there's no local rider to have that spot. And if I remember correctly the Croatian federation have previously said that they could take out a licence with them to enter the qualifiers so there was clearly a willingness to assist them there. With a one-off meeting though they could presumably nominate either as a 'Polish' rider.

I'm guessing there's a reasonable chance that Sayfutdinov or Laguta could be the wildcard for the Croatian GP?

As someone who just wants to see an entertaining meeting, I can't help but be disappointed at Ipswich replacing Belle Vue. Hopefully the track work will make a big improvement but maybe waiting a year to make sure that all went smoothly might have been better.

Incredible from Lambert, he's barely had a bad ride in the second half of the season. Showed no signs of nerves at all, a good 2nd off a tough gate to start and then flawless for the rest of the night. Fair play to Zmarzlik being straight there to congratulate him. A mention for Kurtz too, must be disappointing to miss out again but I'm sure he'll be in contention again next year and he now has a brilliant opportunity to do it in front of a home crowd.

If that's just the peak, is there not a chance that was because the programme overran and it was people tuning in at 10pm for the EFL highlights?

Realistically it couldn't have gone much better than that for Lambert. Hope he can go on to finish the job now.

Maybe it was for a longer-term deal and they didn't want that? Figures I can find from 2022 show their subscription numbers as 222k. Unless that has very heavily increased I don't see much benefit from it. Those kind of numbers aren't going to help grow the sport much over time. If they have/had confidence that a deal with Sky, TNT, ITV etc was possible I think it makes sense to wait.

Phil Morris mentioned a few weeks ago in the Speedway Star that they had turned down a good offer from Premier Sports to cover this season. I think their subscriber numbers would be too low for that to be worthwhile.

Agree with this but I think I read that the side had to be named by last Wednesday so this meeting won't have had any impact on selection.

Looks like it'll only be on HBO Max.

Unfortunate the rain came as it had been a decent meeting up to that point, certainly far more entertaining than the one between these two last month. Difficult to understand just how anyone could come to the decision to exclude Cook, would have been a shocker even without the benefit of replays.

I assumed it was down to Belle Vue to promote it but fair enough if that's not the case. Still in their best interests to do so though as they would be the ones benefitting from any new attendees.

Excellent news and well done to everyone involved in securing this. Hopefully Belle Vue can play their part now and get those tickets sold.

If you go down the one league route then I think they should just allow teams to be built to a much higher limit. Obviously not something as absurd as having seven number ones, but if the likes of Bewley, Doyle etc still want to race here then they shouldn't be blocked for being too good. Tweak the race format so that the top riders in sides aren't facing the weakest as often. If a Bewley is missing a meeting at Berwick or wherever because of a GP or Poland then they can be replaced by an unattached rider for the night. You'll have teams that are clearly much stronger but that's sport. Even if you water it down to a slightly lesser Championship that'll happen to an extent. The best riders will go to the sides that can offer them more and the likes of Edinburgh and Scunthorpe will be left with a Palm Toft at number one.

Feels like all of the GP's this year have actually been quite entertaining. Maybe that's the Woryna affect, he's an absolute nutter but you can't deny he makes things a lot more interesting! Great night for Lambert, not just the win but Zmarzlik dropping points has opened up that title race further. You'd think he would need to win at least two of the last three rounds to stand a chance but on current form he's certainly capable of that. A fit Bewley, Holder and Lindgren throughout could have really made this season something special.