21st century heathen

Personally, I genuinely believe he's the rider I see overtaken more often than any other rider. I'm not quite sad enough to keep a count, but at Monmore and Brandon I've seen him passed time and time again. In the GPs he's regularly beaten after making good starts. Having said that I will add that he was superb at Brandon a couple of weeks ago, but even then he allowed the very poor Simon Stead up the inside and had to re-pass him. I've no doubt he'll improve on that performance too. It was very poor, for whatever reason. *edit* grammar

Paying the price for backing the Brits already. Oh well, at least I didn't take a chance on Bjarne Pedersen.

Have you bothered to work out which points were won from the gate, and which from the back? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cracking racing up to the rain spoiling it. At least I got one of predictions right. B. Pedersen to be passed more than any other rider. The Brits need to learn to gate. On the pace but always chasing. Impressed by Gollob (although the gates suited him after the rain), Dryml and PUK. Adams the worst on the night as one expects rather more than that. I expect AJ and Hans to build on this and be strong all season.

Go to the GP section. Several have been posted there.

I think Crump will win it after a tight battle. N. Pedersen has a few things that may go against him in my opinion. It will be difficult to replicate the achievements of last season meaning he scores less. Crump will surely be better meaning he will be a lot closer to Pedersen. Andersen and Jonsson are ready to take the next step if they stay fit, and therefore could take points off him that they haven't previously. I also think Nicholls and Harris will be score more consistently. I expect Hancock, Holta and Gollob to slip away, and I think Adams has seen his best chance come and go. I don't think he'll do quite so well as AJ and Andersen steal points from him too. KK and Lindgren will have their moments and are possible finalists on home shale. Lindgren hasn't started the season too well, so I'm not expecting this weekend to be a highlight for him. PUK has been superb so far for Wolves and may surprise a few while he's riding on confidence. A potential good result here and there for him. Dryml will, largely, make up the numbers. That leaves just B. Pedersen (I think). He'll be overtaken more times than any other rider and end up somewhere in the mid-field.

Love this photo. ------------------------------------- Crump Adams Pedersen Nicholls

Well, this all started to mean too much as I devised various analyses. Potential improvement or even the decline of certain riders. Points potential at certain tracks, and points to cost ratio. In the end I my gut instinct gave me the same line-up twice so I'm going with that. Jason Crump © $50 Hans Andersen $40 Andreas Jonsson $40 Scott Nicholls $35 Chris Harris $35

*looks smug* Didn't have a single penny on it though. I'm going for Crump tomorrow. Let's see how that works out. Congrats to the top three tonight.

Of course not. That would be rather foolish. As for your siggy - It was just a question.

Tai Adam Ben Lewis I'd put your money on it!!

If I only spend $100k can I have the other $100k back in cash? Good on ya for running this Bert. I'll get back to you with my team when I've crunched the numbers.

Hi Kev. There's plenty of info on him on the Cradley website. I can't copy it across as the site is copyright protected. Go to the main page, link on the left 'Riders A-Z'. He's listed under his real name. In brief it says he was born in Cardiff. He retired after the '74 season with Cradley. He now lives in Australia, and works as a school teacher. There is some more career info on there as well.

And he won the Intercontinental that never was. I can't believe I didn't think of him for this thread. We were talking about him a couple of weeks ago.

I'll do it with you Nikki... as long as you can promise to make it quick and easy. *edit* spacing

It's certainly a factor, but I would have thought that as a relatively expensive trip it would be one most people would be prepared to pay. Particularly as a one-off trip (rather than a repeat trip such as Cardiff or Prague). A GP in Russia is something that would interest me. I doubt anything else would ever tempt me to go there. Mostly because there are lots of places I'd like to go to for a variety of reasons, all of which 'out-rank' the reasons for going to Russia. I could do a couple of trips for the cost of going to Russia under any other circumstance than going to see speedway.

Jan O. Pedersen. I believe he was given 'the nod' to race again, but chose not to. He started '92 in superb form, but was injured in May. I remember reading that years later CVS saw Jan ride in Denmark in some sort of testimonial or demonstration race. He was, reportedly, so impressed by the way he (Jan O) rode that he was close to trying to tempt him over to cover for an injury crisis Wolves were facing. Whether or not he could have been world champion again is open to debate, but I'm sure we'll all agree that the league was robbed of one of its all-time great racers.

Well that's saved me the hassle of typing it all out. Agree with every word. Well done David. A faultless performance, and the burst from the back was a cracking ride. Kyle got things off to a cracking start with his blast from last in heat one, and his battle with Jason was a great race. Pass of the night goes to Danny in the run-off though. Johno couldn't have left any more than exactly a bike width, and Danny just went for it. Superb, ballsy ride. I think the Brummies may be vulnerable early in the season. James, Lee and Jack would be a worry at the moment. Adam needs to make some of the starts I've seen him make at Brandon in a couple of appearances for the Bees. He was quick when he got going, but always chasing. Jason, Kyle and Phil will be scoring plenty. Enjoy your moment.

Don't underestimate Lyons at the Barr. He won an individual last season that featured Roo and Billy. He was flying in practice on Tuesday. I suspect he'll be okay once the adrenalin kicks in. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's between these two for me. 3rd is where the question mark should be.

He looked good in practice. I tell you what, if someone could find sponsorship to buy him European standard equipment he could ride in the PL this season. ----------------------------------------------------- My rostrum three... Howe Lyons Roynon (looked good in practice and did a lot of laps) I hope the Brummies track staff have managed so source some shale. As I said after the practice on Wednesday, most of the track was last seen blowing across the North Sea. Jokes aside, the track and weather conditions made practice very tough. The wind was still gusting very high, the sun dried the track out and the wind blew it all away as dust. It was right down to the base with a couple of lads finding out the hard way that there was nothing left to hold them up as the wind blew them into turn 1. Sadly the complete flip side of the coin (well the weather) looks to be a threat on Sunday. Fingers crossed.

Best wishes to Craig and David. Congrats to all the winners.

Must be 20/25 min on the tram so surely more than 40 mins walking?

The Halesowen News have launched a new poll. Would you like to see speedway up and running on land off Oldnall Road, Cradley? Please visit the link and vote 'yes'. http://www.halesowennews.co.uk/news/ The poll is on the 'editors choice' box in the middle of the page. Currenty 93.8% say yes.

Planning Application Submitted Further information on the following thread. http://www.speedway-forum.co.uk/forums/ind...showtopic=38203

Assuming no rule changes then surely he'd be on a 4 point EL average. ?????

Pretty good way to end the season, on a much improved (from Friday) track. Rory deserved the win. He was clearly the best rider on show. He was making all sorts of passes, inside, outside, cut backs. Was fair to Martin in the heat he dropped points. Almost fenced Martin in the first turn, so he waved Martin back through. Once both had settled back into the race he chased after Martin. He passed him after a couple of laps, but Scott and Jason were long gone by then. Morten is worthy of a special mention as being right up there with Rory as the two most exciting riders on the day. He, too, was making passes all over the track. He came so very close to passing Jason in his first ride. He got level with him but couldn't quite find enough traction on the more slick inside. He made passes in his middle three rides, including two swoops around the outside. He challenged Chris in his last ride but couldn't find a way through. Impressive show by him. One to watch again next season. Filip was a worthy inclusion. It'll be interesting to see what he does next year. I believe he could come straight into the EL. Unlucky in his first when Scott broke down in front of him, and Filip went around the outside. That allowed the other two through. He was also a little unfortunate to fall having led Jason for three and three quarter laps in his second ride. Jason moved under him on the last bend, and Filip just lost it as he was moved off his line. Had he stayed on Chris would not have caught him. From memory he went on to score a creditable 5. Troy was worthy of his points haul. I was aware he was scoring solid points, but it was still a surprise that he grabbed a podium position. He just managed to sneak under the radar somehow. Very sensible on the day. Didn't really get involved in anything. He just kept picking up points by riding steady. Good performance.