SuperSpeed

Sadly it's a shambles at Arlington tonight, tapes not tested in the hour before the meeting and found to have no power just before the first heat. Supposedly giving it ten more minutes for the sparkie to fix it before going off the green light instead.

Public transport is a non-starter unfortunately. Although it's only about 8 miles from the town centre to Arlington Stadium it may be worth leaving a little earlier than you might expect, as there are major roadworks taking place between Polegate and the Cophall roundabout that may increase your journey time. I'm not sure what it's like in the evenings as I don't take that route to Arlington, however on a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago it took me 25 minutes to travel about a mile, and that was with the judicious use of filtering on my motorbike.

Yep, bit of a shambles really. Before Kerr's injury it took an hour and a quarter to run eight heats, and the "10-15" minute interval ended up being half an hour. If the CL/NDL double headers are run at the same pace it'll be gone midnight before we're finished! Tapes were fine last week but, as you say, why leave it to the last minute to test them?

Spot on - it was mentioned on the tannoy that Drew has bikes in Gdansk and so could get an early flight back, whereas Dan had to drive back with his equipment.

Renovation and upgrade work, possibly (but do not hold your breath) including the long awaiting improvements of the toilets. I stopped by there at the start of the summer and it looked like there was some sort of work taking place as the main gates were unlocked and there were a lot of vehicles there. In terms of speedway the club have said that they wouldn't be able to run meetings at any level until September at least due to the works on the stadium, without elaborating further. It seems like Dugard and Co may be taking the enforced break as an opportunity to carry out some much needed work, but of course the speedway and the stadium are separate concerns these days so there is not a whole lot of information forthcoming.

No, under 5s were free but 5-11 years old were £2.

When the draw for the KO Cup was made back in November, Eastbourne were listed as facing Newcastle in the quarter final, both having received a bye in the first round. Poole were drawn against Edinburgh in the first round. Now that the fixtures have been released we're apparently facing Poole in the KO Cup in June, whilst Edinburgh are taking on Newcastle in May. Other ties from the original draw don't appear to have been changed. It makes one wonder what the point of having a draw is if it's going to be disregarded less than two months later and a different set of fixtures drawn up.

It wasn't clear at all, with respect. I'd assumed that when talking about team building for 2020 we'd look at how riders performed in the 2019 season, not what their average was at the start of the year. I've nothing against Morley but he looked out of his depth at 2 last year and had dropped a point from his average by the time we let him go.

5th. Lawson, Kennett, Kerr, and Newman all averaged higher, as did Brennan prior to his injury.

Brennan was in action again last weekend in the Jason Lyons Trophy, full scores (in Polish) at: https://unia.leszno.pl/ksul2017/2019/11/16/jason-lyons-trophy-2019-dla-jaimona-lidseya/

Ian Jordan posted this on Facebook earlier this afternoon: Google Translate tells me that the second line is "very exciting news" in Polish...so is he dropping a hint about the nationality of the 7th rider, or instead trying to throw people off the scent?

No announcements last night, and there weren't any clues that I picked up on either.

Good points. I'd overlooked the prospect of Poole moving down. The announcement of Newman returning was of course subject to the parent club's approval, and to us being in a different league to the parent club. If the clubs being in the same league is a sticking point in terms of him riding for Eastbourne though, then I'd suppose the same would apply to Plymouth, if they move up? The points limit issue applies to every signing that's being announced by any team at the moment, in fairness. During the open meeting after the Birmingham fixture, 41 points with a two point minimum and 43 points with a three point minimum were both mentioned as possibilities under discussion, in which case I wouldn't think that would be an issue, but of course what the reality is remains to be seen. Ian Jordan (Director, rather than Promoter) is indeed going to be working with Plymouth, my understanding (which may be entirely wrong!) is that while he'll be working with them it isn't going to be a wholesale move, as four days ago he said the following in a press release on the Eagles website: "...my financial investment in to the club will continue very much unabated as Director, both in financial terms and in the enormous number of man hours which are spent..." Anyhow, I'd certainly like to see Newman back with us next season. His attitude was first class from day one, and we saw some really good rides from him once he'd gotten used to Arlington.

Newman is already confirmed for Eastbourne next season.

Not sure that's correct - it was originally scheduled to be run during the period he was banned, so he was never named in the line up for it.

That would leave the National League in a sorry state. If two teams move up, and with Cradley and Stoke not running next year, there'd only be four teams left, and two of those would be the 'junior' sides of Leicester and Belle Vue.

Since he moved from reserve to no. 2, Wood has scored 0, 3, 1, 0, and 0 in away meetings. At home he's only ridden twice at 2, scoring 10+2 against Glasgow in the shield semi, and 5 against Redcar in the league. Arguably we're probably better off with R/R away, and given the circumstances of the Glasgow meeting I'm not convinced that it's representative of his ability at home.

To be fair, I'd be a bit miffed if I supported a National League side and a Saturday track in the Championship had signed one of our heat leaders halfway through the season. Good to see Charlie Brooks get a go though, hopefully it'll be good experience for him.