21st century heathen

This shaping up well, and I really do hope that the fans turn out in force. As I said on the other thread I think all at Swindon deserve this to be a success because of the gesture in the first place and the effort being put in to make this a 'proper' meeting.

Don't forget he picked up a third in '07 as well.

Based on his ability I agree with you, but it should be added that he's done bu££er all (relatively speaking) whatever the track conditions this season. I sincerely hope he'll 'come good' sonner rather than later. I don't think I can cope with another SWC cock-up.

I wouldn't go that far. Last season was poor, but I think he deserves a second chance based on the two podium positions in his first GP season. Scott is consistantly a top 10 in the world man. I'd rather see him in the GP for the odd occasion that he steps up to the plate than some random other rider that's tailed off all the time. Lee has had a couple of poor SWC's but for the first 4(?) years he was the top points scorer overall. I don't really follow the foreign leagues but I understand Lee is consistantly good in Poland and Sweden and easily the best of the current crop of Brits abroad.

Well he certainly hasn't improved has he?! My Mom was moaning about him on Saturday evening, and she usually moans at me for moaning about him. Even Havvy was taking the p!$$. We shouldn't laugh though because he really hasn't got a chuffing clue what he's talking about half the time. The catchphrases are really annoying but easier to ignore than the terrible mistakes he makes. He misses so much of what is actually happening and continues to get riders mixed up. I don't need a list of random facts repeatedly rammed down my throat just for something to say. It's okay to be quiet for a while.

I fancy Jason to win this one. He's generally got a good record there, and I think he'll be well up for beating Nicki this season. Greg, Nicki and Hans to join him in the final. Tomasz, Emil, Freddie and Scott to make the semi's. (bet that's soooo far off the mark)

Thanks DW. I was hoping you would be doing these again this season.

Bridger Woffinden Auty Barker Bridger, having top scored, to screw it up with a fall or exclusion if there's a final.

I hope all those that have missed the rider number off their post find they've scored zero after one round. --------------------------------------------- Thanks for running this Pete, and especially for putting up prizes. --------------------------------------------- 1 Nicki Pedersen - 60k 2 Jason Crump - 50k 7 Andreas Jonsson - 35k 15 Emil Saifutdinov - 25k 16 Wild Card - 20k Total - 190k Crump to be the captain for Prague please.

Search the forum thread titles for old Prague topics. There's loads of information already on here, so you may not get it repeated in time for this weekend.

So that would be the World Pairs then! I guess if you're relatively new to the sport you may have missed it. It was ditched before the World Team Cup was revamped into the World Cup, so I guess it was due to scheduling. Can't see the problem to be honest. Speedway has team and individual racing and this is a combo of both. And it's provided some of the best speedway over the last few years. Maybe we've been watching different meetings?!

I don't recall that ever coming off either. It would have been interesting from an advertising/promotion point of view, but of course he'd have wiped the floor with a lot and it wouldn't have been much of a race against some. It was a nice idea, and good to see a world champion looking at the big picture.

Of course not. But as I said, he was 17 at the time and came from the back to beat them on a track they know inside-out. ------------------------------------------- Hopefully people will keep things in perspective. Just to qualify by right for 2010 would be an achievement for him. I expect ups and downs throughout the 2009 season.

There speaks a modern era fan. Shame you never saw speedway way pre-dirt deflectors. You only had to be in the general region of the corners to have to go home and wash the dirt out of your hair. You would literally have brown water running off your head. I could get my Mom to tell you a story about going to the speedway in a nice new coat if you like. Ahhhhh those were the days.

If others accepted a pay cut of around 25% and Nicki is prepared to accept a cut of around 20%-30% I think few could argue that's fair enough. It also adds weight to the suggestion that he had been expected to take a much bigger, and arguably unfair, cut by Czestochowa.

If you read my posts properly you'll see that I don't entirely disagree. I just said that if it's a 50% cut I would lean towards falling on Nicki's side of the argument.

Emil is without a shadow of doubt one of the brightest prospects in world speedway for quite some time. He's already been in the Russian SWC squad for the last couple of years. Take a look at what he did to career Cov rider Billy Janirro and Simon Stead, who has in the past named Cov as one of his fave tracks. I don't think he'd been to Brandon before this visit in the SWC 2007. I'm pretty sure he was just 17 at the time.

The point I was really trying to make was that Nicki has a signed contract that states he will get 'x'. The club should have had the foresight to negociate a deal it could afford in the first place.

I can see both sides, but if it's a 50% pay-cut then I'm leaning towards Nicki's point of view. He will have a contract in place and will have planned his season around an estimated budget. To suddenly, on the eve of the season, be expected to take a 50% pay-cut is unbelievable. Losing £200k, for example, could blow his title hopes out of the water (just an example to show what it could mean to a rider like Nicki). Guys like Nicki may earn what most of us consider a huge sum, but they will be spending plenty on their set-up for the season and may already be committed to certain contracts for equipment themselves. Those that are on the side of the club should consider how they would cope with their financial commitments if they had to take a 50% pay cut tomorrow. The flip side being that 50% is better than nothing if the club folds.

Sky 413

Billy was undeniably slow, but I believe it was in part due to the fact that he didn't want a silly fall. The Mrs. would never have forgiven him if he'd gone home in plaster. Ronnie looked very good, and would certainly do a job at reserve for Wolves. An average around 4½-5 is lot more than Stichauer appears capable of after the couple of meetings he's had. Sam was still pretty quick too, and he stayed on!!

Perhaps they have and perhaps he doesn't. If the right offer came along then who knows?! Perhaps he's waiting on a place with the Bees? I'm trying to reserve judgement on Scotty, but it's not easy given the circumstance. The notice given was not sufficient for his name to be left out of the programme whereas Wayne Cater (due to ride for Wolves against Cradley) clearly had given enough notice as his name as replaced with a blank.

Quick thank you to fans of other clubs for comments about Cradley and its fans. Is there another club that could take such vocal numbers to a farewell after 12 years out of the sport?! How are we not back on track yet?! Indeed. I think it's fair to say that Tobi has no excuse not to get his act together now. Smoli jumped on his bike, rode well and scored respectably. The last race was just a staged 'dance'. I am surprised Billy didn't come through for the flag though. He just wasn't bothered. I think he was probably under strict instructions not to do anything silly.

I thought it was a cracking send off for Billy, with some terrific racing despite a slightly slicker track than normal. To be fair, there was a brisk wind and the sun drying it out, and a lot more races than normal so that had an effect too. Jason/Ryan/Ed was worth the admission alone. Superb racing. Grin chasing down and passing Tai after losing about 30m in mid-race was a stunning effort. He really rolled back the years with that effort. PK also rolled back the years with a particularly good 3rd/4th bend swoop on Tai. Classic PK move. Lyons loved that move in his youth too, and showed he hadn't forgotten the way around Monmore. And since I'm talking about the Brummies number one it should be documented that he did unbelievably well to turn left on the straight to miss Ryan when he had an engine failure, but not so far left that he collected Ricky who was level with him at the time. Lightening reactions by Lyons and kept a cool head for that vital spilt second. Well done Jason. Ricky is improving all the time, but won't always get away with one or two dodgy starts. The track suited him and he made a real fist of it. He made a few passes and his battle with Smoli was a cracking race. Smoli was well worth his points and perhaps one or two more. I can't believe nobody has been on the phone to him in the last couple of seasons. Surely he has more potential than some of the 5-pointers out there. Crump deserved the win in the end. PK was a worthy second and Freddie nicked third due to the fact that the top four faced each other in heat 20. Had he been in heat 20 he'd have probably dropped a couple of points and allowed Greg or Leigh to take a podium place. There was little to choose between the top 5 all night. Tai was solid and worthy of a place near the top end. Then a 3 point gap back to Edward. It's unusual to see a gap like that, and showed a clear difference between the top end and the middle order. Lee, Travis and Nicolai were very poor. Especially Lee, who was never even in a race to the first turn. Ty found the pace a little hot, and was passed a fair bit. Adam rescued his evening with a last race win. By contrast Ryan found his night go the other way. He was going well enough until a last race engine failure spoilt his night. I think that's everyone. It was great to see the Cradley/Wolves heats. Though there was no real racing it was great to see as a Cradley fan. The funniest moment of the night was after Graham Jones had got up from his spill Porky called for a round of applause for him and then a round of applause for the fence. Superb! Just as a footnote - He didn't come out for his second ride so best wishes. I hope he didn't do himself any harm. And just to end I have to add that we always did drown out the Wolves fans and today was no different. 'OMMER UM CRADLEY' My most sincere best wishes to Billy and his family for whatever the future brings.

I haven't heard anything specific.