Noelinho

Hate to point out the obvious, but going wide like that was always going to end up with Starke in the fence. That was just silly.

Wonder wheel is out.

Radar just got a lot worse too. If the rain we've had is enough to stop the meeting, there's no way they'll go again - expecting more in the next 20 minutes.

Looks like the ref is walking to the pits. The track seems fine to ride, but it will be processional as it is now. Looks like Tom Brennan wants some track work at turn two.

I think that was more Broc than the track, to be honest. He drops his head fast at times.

Exactly. The biggest problem is referees too often let riders off with it, so it's always a shock when a ref decides to exclude.

Raindrops falling now.

He'd been invited to the tapes by the starting marshal. Time had expired. He'd been tapped by the marshal and continued to ignore him. The ref is entitled to exclude him. He wasn't even sitting on his bike at the time. I could see it coming.

Stevie Worrall throwing a tantrum. Was gardening well beyond the 2 minutes and ignored the start marshal. Tonight's ref isn't messing around. He's a picky one.

We'll find out at about 7pm!

Basso's in the zone, running up and down Hawthorn Street. Ominous clouds, but they've looked this way all afternoon and they've not leaked yet...

Given BSN are covering the tie, I wonder how flexible they can be about times? And realistically, with the geographical difference, a decision would've been needed yesterday.

It’s a dead rubber hundreds of miles from home. The only thing I care about is none of the Glasgow riders pick up an injury or a bike issue.

Oh, sorry. I thought you mean for the playoff tie. Couldn’t care less who we field at Plymouth to be honest. 7 guests and Middleditch as TM would suit me fine.

That’s not going to happen!

Ah, i forgot about that, you’re quite right. So it seems if we don’t manage today, the next available day would be Saturday. I can’t imagine they want that. So realistically, it would be a week on Tuesday as the next possible date.

If there is a rain off, it would normally be re-arranged for Friday, but the current forecast for Friday is bad. Given the Poole leg takes Wednesday out, Thursday has the best forecast. It’s a very unusual day for us to use (it’s usually Friday, then Sunday, then maybe Wednesday?), but I don’t know what the biggest limiting factor is for us. Obviously there’s Premiership playoffs during the week too, which might present complications.

The Ben Fund has to be today - there are no other fixtures, unless we get through to the final, or there’s something else arranged that hasn’t been announced (I’d like to see us arrange a two-legged tie with Edinburgh, given the circumstances, but I doubt it’ll happen). Current forecast is 0.3mm of rain per hour from 6pm, which is less than was forecast. That wouldn’t be an issue in summer but will cause more problems today. I think the track should be OK, but it’ll be tricky for the riders. It significantly reduces the home track advantage as it’ll be very different to what we have been riding on for months.

I’d happily go along, pay and support the promotion if they do that, but it does seem very unlikely. It’s just too far to get enough fans to travel regularly, before you take anything else into account.

Especially as it’s colder now. As soon as that track gets wet, it’s staying wet.

The people's champions

I suspect the weekend family business is a more sustainable way of paying his bills. Think they said he was on holiday for the Plymouth match. Fair play - nothing wrong with not constantly bending over backwards at the expense of your family.

I’m glad I didn’t bother to go. The only thing worse than freezing your arse off at Armadale is freezing your arse off whilst the home team get mauled the one time you’d be OK with them doing well.

That was epic team riding around turn 1 in the re-run of heat 8 there.

I seem to remember Starke being decent at Ashfield earlier in the season. I don't think he's a big risk at 2.