WalterPlinge

To be fair, if Starman posted an apology for every mistake he made, the forum would soon run out of bandwidth and crash.

It wasn't just the state of the track and the stadium... nor the electric going off. It was the whole shambles. Playing music through a minutes silence was disgraceful. No presentation, no racejackets, an announcer who didn't know who two of the rider being introduced were (and once he found out who Ryan Burton was, he still called him Ryan Burnett) etc etc..

The first meeting in Manchester was 25 June 1927 at Droylsden. The first meeting at Belle Vue was 28 July 1928 at the Belle Vue Greyhound Stadium, this lead to the construction of a purpose built stadium for 1929 still in Belle Vue on Hyde Road. 2017 is the 90th season of speedway racing at Belle Vue, July 2018 is the 90th anniversary date, during the 91st season.

With the weather being nice yesterday I took a trip up to Stoke for the Pride of the Potteries which used to be a top individual event years ago.... what a mistake to make!!! The Stoke stadium continues to deteriorate. There are huge tractor tyre on the centre 'green' in contravention of the speedway regulations, and you can't see through the mesh safety fence on the home straight anymore as huge mounds of earth have been piled up against the outside of the safety fence (another health and safety hazard). The track appeared to have had no earlier preparation, except a considerable amount of water had been dumped on the track in various places not long before the start. The first bend looked dusty. The 3rd and 4th bends a very wet skating rink that looked like it would be very difficult to negotiate. There were no racejackets for the meeting. However the Belle Vue riders wore BV racejackets with the correct numbers on the back. The Birmingham riders and most of the Stoke riders wore their club racejackets, although they had their normal club numbers on the back, not the riding number for this meeting. Paul Burnett, Ryan Burton, Tony Atkin, David Speight, Tom Woolley, Sam Woolley had no race jacket at all (although Atkin has a Stoke logo on the front of his kevlars). The riders ambled out to the start line to be announced to the crowd, and to their credit got into 1-16 number order. However the bod in the box could only announce 14 of them as he didn't know who Burton and Woolley were. (They were changes to the programme and he clearly hadn't been given the names and didn't recognise who they were). The centre green presenter then asked for a minutes silence for Gary Towers who passed away during the winter. Unfortunately as Mr Centre Green stopped talking to observe a minutes silence, the bod in the box took this as his cue to play the music again. He eventually realised and stopped it, so Mr Towers did get 20 seconds of silence after 40 seconds of pop music. The racing started as we eagerly waited to see if anyone could negotiate the 3rd bend skating rink. They couldn't. As they reached the 3rd bend, 1st lap, leader Darryl Ritchings fell, and 2nd placed Rob Shuttleworth close behind him also fell. Ritchings remounted, and actually got 2nd place because Chris Hay could only two-wheel his way around. Daniel Greenwood fell before the start of heat 2 as he tried a practice bend. Then all the electricity went off and the airfence deflated. When we resumed, Ryan Burton was a faller on the heat 2 ice rink. The track started to dry out and kick up dust, but there were still fallers on the poor track. Normally the track is graded after heat 4, 8, 12, 16 in individual meetings, but no tractor or water cart came out after 4 or 8, even though by heat 8 the dust was very bad. heats 8 and 9 were awarded due to heavy falls for Speight and Greenwood. Then after heat 10 was an interval. No tractor, but a misfiring water cart dumped water in random places and the track was back to diabolical. In heat 11 Chris Hay gave up, Layne Cupitt fell, previously unbeaten Luke Priest two-wheeled round slowly for 2nd place, and Paul Burnett won in a time over 11 seconds outside the track record. Rob Shuttleworth fell and remounted twice in heat 13 but still got a point ahead of Ryan Burton who fell and remounted only once. By now Dan Greenwood and Chris Hay had had enough of bent equipment and withdrew. Heat 19 finished with just one original starter, Ryan Terry-Daley, who beat the only other competitor - meeting reserve Sam Woolley. We finally got through 20 heats and Mitchell Davey won, Luke Priest 2nd, Darryl Ritchings 3rd. Dave Tattum took to the microphone to tell us what great racing we had seen....so all was OK.

Swapped some to make it different . Luke Bowen 9.42 Dan Greenwood 6.82 Jack Parkinson-Blackburn 6.97 Jack Smith 6.32 Kyle Bickley 3.00 Jordan Jenkins 3.00 Tom Brennan 3.00 = 38.53

Ben Morley 9.22 Danyon Hume 7.33 Jack Parkinson-Blackburn 6.97 Jack Smith 6.32 Kyle Bickley 3.00 Jordan Jenkins 3.00 Tom Brennan 3.00 = 38.84

See Greg's post above. It's Luke Priest

Correct. just before christmas my Star arrived on a Friday. Four or five years ago when we had the heavy snow, one of my Stars took 10 days to arrive. It actually arrived the day after the following week's, which took 2 days to arrive. Apart from this, my Star has made the 200+ mile journey overnight every week for 20 years and landed on a Thursday morning. (including this morning). The only difference over 20 years is that it used to arrive at 8am before I went to work. Now it doesn't arrive until gone 11am. Clearly no problem with the Star leaving the Star offices. The person with the delivery problem needs to trace it from that end, starting with his own postman and working backwards.

Well, it was 19th March actually when it wasn't staged, and the "circumstances beyond our control" have been well documented and debated. However this thread is about this year's event. And on that subject can someone alter the title of the thread to show the correct date of 1 April, (it was changed from 26 March some weeks back). Latest additions to line up Patrick Hougaard Ricky Wells Jason Garrity Ben Barker

Jacobs only did one NL match for IOW last year, scoring a 15 point maximum. 8.63 was his average from Mildenhall 2014.

So Luke Bowen's shredded tyre was one of last year's red ones, and the new yellow one used by Kenneth Bjerre stood up well? panic over?

Can't Ben Basford be tempted? Best other option would be Rob Parker or even Ryan MacDonald, Macauley Leek, Kevin Whelan?

Injured No.1 is guest Injured 2-5 is Rider Replacement Injured reserve is an uncontracted 3.00 rider But Birmingham could redeclare up to the points limit with a 3.48 rider like Paul Burnett (3.46)

Is it 3.48 available for a replacement? Paul Burnett?

She scored null points at Eurovision 2003,so best sticking to the speedway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jemini

Thought it was time this had a thread of its own rather than the Coventry combo thing which apparently died a death some time back, even weeks before Coventry sadly folded. With the Aces team being released to completion during this week, presumably the Colts team will all be released during next week. Don't think we're really expecting any surprises. Seems fairly clear which riders haven't been signed elsewhere

Sadly the biggest damage to British riders was done by Mr Sandha closing Coventry, as they had 5 Brits ready to go. Elsewhere it is congratulations to Rye House (6 Brits) and Belle Vue (4 Brits). The BSPA Chairman has 3 at King's Lynn and there are 3 at Wolves. Shame on Poole, Swindon, Somerset and Leicester who have only scraped together the minimum compulsory 2 Brits.

King's Lynn Rye House Belle Vue Wolves Poole Somerset Swindon Leicester

The late withdrawal of Coventry from the Premiership obviously has caused hardship to many, not least the Coventry riders and fans. So I was thinking was there anyway we could have kept the Coventry team in the league? Clearly Leicester couldnt accommodate the Coventry fixtures on top of their own, but could we widen this out a bit more? My suggestion would be a nomadic team travelling the country for the 2017 season. A sort of Harlem Globetrotters for Speedway. The Coventry team would stay together and take their place in the Premiership just as The Bees. They would visit each of the other 8 Premiership teams twice as normal for the 16 away fixtures, but their home fixtures would be staged one each at each of the 10 Championship tracks and the 6 best National League tracks, Birmingham, Eastbourne, Lakeside, Mildenhall, Kent and Plymouth. Anyone presenting ID at the turnstiles with a Coventry address would be allowed in free of charge, but it would give each of the lower league tracks a chance to stage one Premiership meeting to see how their crowd would react to top-flight racing. Im not sure how, for example, Glasgow fans would fancy watching The Bees v Belle Vue, or Plymouth fans watching The Bees v Poole, but some tracks are putting on challenge matches against the proposed Coventry side, so maybe it could work?

Go on then. If you know why not tell us? Certainly a very good start with two promising teenagers in Bewley & Smith.

Works fine for me on PC

I was told last week by a credible source that BT were keen to show British speedway. The suggestion was that it would be a better deal for the sport than what Sky were paying and there could also be a way to get out of the GoSpeed stranglehold. I assumed they were talking about when the current Sky contract ends at the back end of 2018, so I didn't really pursue the conversation further. If it's going to happen sooner it sounds like it might be good news.

Yet if you do an actual comparison of the tracks in operation in 1990 with the tracks in operation today, you will find:- We have lost – Reading, Oxford, Bradford, Cradley Heath, Hackney, Wimbledon, Exeter, Long Eaton, Milton Keynes, and now sadly Coventry…. A total of 10 tracks. But we have gained: Leicester, Somerset, Scunthorpe, Sheffield, Workington, Birmingham, Buxton, Isle of Wight, Kent, Mildenhall and Plymouth…. A total of 11 tracks. So we actually have more stadia staging speedway in 2017 than we did in 1990.

Correct. his average is 8.63, but has he already signed for Belle vue Colts?

Mildenhall Kent Belle Vue Eastbourne Lakeside Birmingham Cradley Isle of Wight King’s Lynn Stoke Buxton Plymouth