wtf

Sounds like God was oozing humility again last night

My concern for Belle Vue is that too many times Fricke in particular goes missing in the first part of meetings. Sure he gets going in the later stages and his scores over the whole night don't look too bad, but by then, often the meeting is lost. Your #1 sets the tone for the meeting. in 3:4 home meetings Belle Vue have conceded a 5:1 in heat one. He needs to be more competitive in Heat 1. That would be a concern. Brady goes missing on occasion too. Can be very inconsistent. Wright does seem to be the only one who even if he doesn't have speed or the perfect set up will actually fight and not give up.

Unfortunately there are many on here who feel that any track that isn't shaped like Belle Vue is rubbish and should immediately be condemned. The particular skill set required to race around places like Armadale, Wolves, Plymouth, and many other "more technical" tracks are being lost every year. Personally I find the variety of different tracks in the UK very enjoyable. Admittedly they could often be prepared better (the entire speedway world miss Doc and his like) and this is the case up and down the whole country. Places like Armadale can produce terrific meetings. Sounds like the owners have been as reasonable as possible. They have decided to sell up, and have offered the stadium up for the Monarchs or anyone else to purchase. I do fear that if the Monarchs miss 2023 then we could end up with enthusiasm waning and another slow drawn out death.

I think it was an unfortunate set of circumstances whereby just as Richard is turning harder than Adam expected and therefore scrubbing off more speed than Adam expected, Adam is at the same time making a distinct move to go to the outside and the miscalculation of speeds causes the collision. It only takes a minor miscalculation to happen. The reason why it's not just OK for the rider in front to just take any line he chooses at all costs is because without brakes the guy behind can't just slow down instantly. For ,me this was a racing incident. The clues as to how Richard was defending the position were clear and had been for a couple of laps, Adam was going all out to make the pass and switched lines one way as Richard was switching the other. Sure Adam will be pi##ed off about it as will any Sheffield Fans and so they should. It was unlucky on Adam, but for me, The best referee in the business made the right call.

You are absolutely right about the crash being caused by the scoring system. This pairs scoring format introduces a race where the only thing is to not finish last. Once Holder had gone, you could see that Lawson was trying to slow the race down and had been doing so for at least a lap before, backing Ellis into pickering to hopefully secure the pass. These bikes when flat out are not easy to slow down or change line. Richard certainly turned left on Adam. But I have some sympathy with them both, as it's not as though Adam didn't know what was happening, and could have been prepared for it. Only time recently I have seen similar was the championship Pairs 2017 at sheffield when Ben Barker tried to slow the race down backing Kyle Howarth and Charles Wright into each other, ending Charles' season with broken wrists. It's the scoring system which changes the natural instincts of what's important in that race. It caught Adam out last night. I have sympathy for both of them. I'm not a fan of the scoring system for that reason. Whichever way Tony Steele had gone, and it wasn't an easy call he would have upset on side or the other. I can see both sides of the argument and I think the root cause is the scoring system. But we hear every week about wanting to see more team riding and more track craft. The incident last night shows it's not as easy as we think

Just depends on what was agreed when the booking was taken, often now guest bookings are on a guarantee, often they are agreed 4 rides only, no heat 15 or tacticals, just depends whether the rider or promotion are in the driving seat when it's arranged. Who needs who the most. The skill is in the negotiation.

very true, conditions were very difficult for the track staff and I think because of the rain they did about as much as they could, they removed material from the inside to make it slicker and more consistent, but as material moved out it was one line right on the very edge of the cushion of dirt. Very few ventured into the dirt proper and when they did it was so heavy the bikes were two wheeling in a straight line there was that much grip. Only the brave and fool hardy and those with large kahoonas when there. When they did the slingshot they got was huge.

Completely agree, and tracks have to be in better condition than they were years ago because of the way the sport has gone and engines have developed. And it is NOT the riders fault. These modern engines (lets face it the bikes themselves have hardly changed) are nigh on impossible to ride in poor conditions. They cannot handle deep dirt, or more importantly patchy inconsistent conditions. There are very few old school style riders left these days with throttle control and even they struggle in poor conditions because they don't have an engine suitable for them. (heavy flywheels, low revving etc) because that type of engine would be useless anywhere else. The riders get a lot of flack for not being able to handle poor conditions but it's not their fault. the bikes/engines are so different these days. If you want speedway to go ahead in all conditions, they need to change the rules on engines, but this then separates the sport in the UK from elsewhere so no riders would cross from one to another. It's a dilemma for sure and one that I'm not sure the rule makers are qualified to figure out. Most just don't understand. Look how buster blows his stack when even his own riders say they can't ride the track. He just bangs on about how if he could ride it 40 years ago why cant they? It's not helpful to anyone when that few brain cells are involved

I think speedway is much easier in general if you work on the assumption that everything any promotion says is a lie. Then you can feel happy when you find the odd truth in there. It's all about managing your expectations. Like many it's too easy to give promoters credit, when really none is due

It's unfortunate also, when you talk to a lot of the senior polish riders who came over here to learn their craft and become better riders because of the variety of track etc, they are now telling me that because polish tracks have got slicker over the years and much more rider friendly, the skillset of how to turn a bike, throttle control etc is not seen as important any more. So the young Polish riders no longer look to come over to the uk to learn for a couple of seasons. Combine that with the high revving, light flywheel engines we have now, and all you get is a load of throttle jockies who are super fast on the continent and then end up in row Z when track conditions are anything other than perfect. It's just the direction the sport is going in. Plenty of people on here love flat out racing at Belle Vue, but when the track conditions are consistent the only real skillset is getting the absolute perfect set up for you engine, and being as light as can be. The rider has less and less influence on the modern speedway bike and tracks.

The problem is cost. The way squad systems operate in Poland and Sweden particularly, is based on being paid for the meetings you ride, and a healthy signing on fee as a retainer for your services if you don't ride. The UK essentially doesn't pay signing on fees at all, and it's main attraction to riders is that you should ride every available meeting bar injury or dramatic loss of form. In Poland particularly, 2 bad rides and your replaced for the meeting and as many have found out, won't ride again that year. Squads just don't work without funding and we all know the UK doesn't have a pot to pish in

Must be pretty galling for the Berwick faithful to watch Bomber ride everywhere else this week apart from his home club. I know he's on Team GB duty, but it's not like he's the future for team GB is it. But apparently It's all about the future when you listen to Rob Painter? Sure he's riding well, but I know if I were a Bandit fan I'd be a little miffed.

Not disputing what you were led to believe, what a Championship club were led to believe. His blocking had nothing to do with league allocations, poles, whether you believe in Jesus or whether you voted for or against brexit. One person alone stopped him riding a short term deal in the championship.

That was just the story that was put out to make it sound better. The Poles had no problem with it.

Whilst I agree with pretty much all the sentiments above, and sounding off makes many feel better, I fear you are all just wasting your breath and your time. The fundamental failings of speedway in the uk are simply that the sport is governed and run by those individual business owners within it. They manipulate whatever is necessary to their own ends, and will continue to do so. Any new member to the club will soon be hounded out or suppressed if they start to break the mould. Until that changes, everything else is window dressing, posturing, and general BS Its never going to change voluntarily, as to do so, you need all these business owners to hand over the control of the rules by which their businesses operate. This isn't a championship problem, it's all uk leagues. The only way these people are going to hand over control is ££££ and lots of it. That's very unlikely, so if you want to carry on bickering about how wrong things are, fine, but at least be realistic. Unless some Barry Hearne type figure walks through the door offering big £££ to take control of UK speedway, It's not going to change. All the BS in the world is just spin. When all is said and done, we are just customers of some business who sell a product. They do as little as they can to get as much ££ as they can. Your 'rights' are you can either buy the product or not. You can bitch and moan about it or not. And please don't ever quote the 'fans' thing. Fans are just a clever marketing ploy to make individuals buy into a brand where they will make illogical decisions and spend more money on a product than is sensible. Turn someone into a fan and you have a gullible cash cow waiting for you at every opportunity. Might sound harsh, but it's true. I think we should just spend more time enjoying the simplicity of watching 4 people racing 4 laps with no brakes a bit more, for what it is. Trying to ignore what we know goes on in the background. If you think too hard about the rest of it, it just sucks the life and soul out of you. Keep hoping for a Barry Hearne type figure to come along, but I believe that opportunity was had, and rejected 25 years or so ago.

He does like to be the centre of attention. He'd hate people to go home not realising he had been there

Completely agree, last season your team overachieved and will be remembered for winning against the odds. This year more back to normal. The track has been the same since 2019, but somehow when you're winning it looks different.

I'm sure by now Bomber will have made himself available. He's guested for everyone else so far this season

Just because a rider is alive and breathing doesn't mean they are available. I'm aware of Plymouth courting at least one rider and genuinely saying "name your price" and still not able to get them to sign, so I believe they are trying very hard to replace Kennett. The only way around these issues is Squads. and squads don't work in the UK because the sport cannot afford squads. Squads only happen with big signing on fees, that's the only way a rider is prepared to make themselves available for work and not be employed while someone else is riding.

That's exactly what Zagar did, and if it was track prep he would have said about the track being prepared poorly. He was quite specific about the problem being the material and I'd like to think he's been around long enough to know. Difference with Zagar is he doesn't care who he upsets by saying it

Buster ruined the track in 2019 when he added 30 tons of clay to the material and it gave him essentially the same top dressing as he has at Lynn. Go back over the last few years and this has been a common theme since 2019. Back then in order to get a slicker inside they ended up not grading till after heat 10 half the time, but the clay is in the material. the only way to get rid of it is to completely change the top dressing and that costs a lot of money. No one is going to bother with that as you're only going to be there for a couple more seasons. Funny, the track really hasn't changed much since 2019, sure some days it rides better than others, but a lot of that depends on the opposition. When you're winning the track is seen differently to when you're losing. But people see what they want to see

Jorgensen replaces dougy

People believe what they want to believe, on both sides of any argument.

Who built the team? The Team Manager or The Team Owner and his lapdog?

I didn’t say no one would do it. I said it puts some off. It’s not for everyone. And those you mentioned are likely to be earning more than a 4 point reserve on £50 a point