21st century heathen

Okay OKAY so they were all good but had one bad ride!!

Well I was bound to miss something!

Dammit!! I'm gutted. (well done Jason ) At least I successfully jinxed Adam. (serves you right for the comments on the podium after the Golden Hammer ) Shame Ash, Simon and Richie appear to have blown their shot at a place on the podium with one bad ride on an otherwise decent night. Biggest shock must be Bazza with just 1.

I meant to say in my previous that I thought I'd seen Auty and Haines at 14 on the 500's in the British U18's whereas it's usually 16-18 year old's and wonder whether you might be able to do the same. I just wasn't very clear. In any case thanks for the reply and best wishes with the transition to 500's. Oh dude and just when I was starting to warm to the lad. Why would he want to get involved with a crash-happy dirty doghead?!! (someone explain the rivalry to Nathan so he doesn't get the wrong idea please - cheers ) Cheers. Lets hope the BSPA are noticing the handful of very young riders coming through and equally lets hope they put their hand in the pockets to help them out (best way to spend a few quid of the Sky money).

I know, but why mention it here. Just thought it was a little unnecessary. I have my gripes too, but I wouldn't mention them on threads that are unrelated.

Thanks for the reply Nathan. What sort of time line do you have planned in terms of jumping on a big boy's bike? Not too soon and not too late - It must be quite difficult to know when the time is right to make the transition to a 500cc. I'm pretty sure I saw Joe Haines and Josh Auty ride in the U18's at Monmore on 500cc bike with special dispensation for their age given their ability on the bike. Certainly somebody did because I remember a forum discussion about whether they should be allowed too - with the majority coming down on the 'if you are good enough you are old enough' side of the debate.. I wonder whether you may be able to follow a similar path.

Oh Bryn, why bring your soap box mate?! Nobody here is criticising Nick or Kyle.

Sticking with Allott then, to be different, and no prob.

Another day another thrashing. Congrats to the IoW. I was gutted to read about Kyle last night but delighted by the update this morning. Frankly, that was the most important thing. I sincerely hope Nick is okay too?

I thought he looked a really good prospect. He handled that 250cc with all the confidence and ease that Crump handled his 500cc - no mistakes to speak of and full throttle into the corners. I can't believe anyone could have jumped on it and got much more out of it than he did. It will be interesting to see how he makes the transition to a 500cc. How old is he?

Yeah it's a shame it's taken an injury to see Kyle in a Heathens race jacket again, but good to have him back in the team for the last few meetings.

It's absolutely shocking that such a simple looking fall, I wouldn't even call it a crash, could result in such an injury scare. As I said on Updates last night it should serve as a reminder to us all, and I include myself, that if a rider doesn't jump up straight away there might be a good reason for it. Best wishes Armo. Hope to see you back up on your feet soon.

Porky was in fine form until Armo's fall. I think because it looked like nothing but resulted in what seems to have been a nasty injury, and a scary one I would imagine, he was completely thrown for the last part of the meeting. I think he was expecting to go over, chat to Armo and report he was just winded or something like that. The Heathens website is reporting that Armo was stabilised when he got to hospital last night, and more will follow.

ha ha you're just upset because it turns out your mob aint all that and we're just crap.

Well we were beyond crap once again. The odd bright spot with a few good rides here and there but overall we thoroughly deserved to be beaten out of sight on own shale once again. At least nobody can accuse us of having a win at a all costs attitude though. Huge congrats to Buxton. Fully deserved. And most importantly tonight my best wishes to Armo. Hoping for some good news soon because it didn't sound good and Porky seemed shaken by it to me.

NLRC has priority over PL commitments. Just to be different I'll say Allott to win it, but I think Hughes would be my real first choice winner.

The honest answer is that we don't know. The loss of form has been spectacular. The margin of defeat on a number of occasions now has been staggering and should not have happened even given a few injury problems. C'est la vie. We just have to move on to Buxton next week and hope that, with respect to them, we give them a right good 'ommering to restore some pride and regain some confidence ahead of the last two league fixtures.

So there isn't a single rider free that fancies a run out in this challenge? Would like to see 7 v 7 please!!

Cheers, hadn't seen the fixtures.

I was thinking that. Stoke are so strong that surely they could give someone a chance at reserve and promote Isherwood to the top 5? Even without Lambert (why's he missing?) Stoke have 3 riders in heat leader form, arguably 4 as Sarj is going well.

To be honest mate I don't think having Rich and Danny all night would have made a great deal of difference to the score anyway. The top 5 only managed two heat wins between them so it's difficult to see where any additional significant points would have come from. I'd still have fancied Stoke to get 60. Hey-ho, Cradley started in '47 and didn't win a major trophy 'til '79(?) so these lads have already beaten that record.

Well I'm pretty much speechless. There was no excuse for taking a beating like that. We still had our top 5 in tact but they were completely outclassed. I s'pose the only real highlight was a much improved score by Ash, but what was he doing getting the race stopped when on a tac ride. He was only ever going to get himself discluded. Silly mistake, not that it made any real difference. Tom rode okay as well to be fair to him but you can't afford to have bike problems against table-toppers, and he was unlucky to twice lead a race only to miss out at the third attempt to run it. Apart from that there was a race win for Armo and nothing else worth a mention. Congrats to Stoke. The boys did their job, and then some, right throughout the team. ----------------------------- Re: Announcing looking out for changes - I heard on the terrace last night that Rich had a broken shoulder so I'm quite sure the Management team knew that. So while on the face of it it seemed an unnecessary kick in the teeth to the riders I would suggest the statement probably related to this. *edit* Confirmed on the website - Rich is out for the season. Gutted for him because after a difficult start to the season he had contributed some good scores in the last few weeks. ATB Rich.

On reflection I regret my choice of words because it gives the wrong impression of my feelings. In saying "pick and choose" it gives the impression I'm accusing Tim of doing this. I apologise for that. It was not my intention. I could just as easily have used Jason Garrity missing last week as he was, according to a post I've read, on holiday. Why should a club get a facility for a rider that goes on holiday during a week that his team has meetings? And just to clarify this so it's not misunderstood - I don't know for a fact why Jason was missing last week. The issue I have is with the rule as quoted above. It gives clubs/riders an easy option that should not be there. I feel it's open to exploitation and is a loophole that should be closed or at the very least tightened and more clearly defined in its application. I hope that's clear?

So with the heavy rain having slipped away a little further east we will have a meeting for me to comment on then. I must say I was impressed by the Heathens' bounce-back-ability last week and with Armo continuing to talk-the-talk this week I hope to see a similar level of passion and determination from the Heathens camp tonight. We are certainly going to need it. Everyone can take an r/r ride. Monmore Wood holds no fears for the top four of Lambert, Pickard, Atkin and Sargeant so we're going to have find something at the top end to match them and hopefully clean up at reserve, where we're stronger on paper I feel. I expect another close one and something very much along the lines of the KOC meeting a few weeks ago wouldn't surprise me. Win, lose or draw if tonight's combatants serve up something akin to last week's epic encounter I would suggest everyone will go home with a broad smile across their face.

Unfortunately the NL allows riders to pick and choose their meetings. 18.1.2 A Team may utilise a "Facility" to cover the absence of a Rider(s) who: K in the NL only, is absence for any reason