Noelinho

Hope Worrall has read up on 011.1.6.b since last week.

He didn’t prevent the raising of the gate. It had already been released.

Can’t say I’m surprised at the low crowd. It’s a dead rubber and we weren’t expecting this to be the last home meeting. Also, I think Heat 1 should’ve been brought back as B. Cook jumped.

“We’re not sure what happening with the Jubilee Cup” - doesn’t sound promising.

Of course he is. It’s not like I watched it or anything!

Base on appearances in semi finals, I would give wildcards to: Dudek (6) Woffy (6) Vaculik (4, but missed a round through injury and wasn’t really fit for the first one he came back - plus two wins) Michelson (6) Thomson (3 in six rounds, before his injury at the GP Challenge) Theres no one obviously better than Doyle for the last slot. Fricke won a round but made no other semi finals. Doyle made 5. Žagar maybe?

Someone asked for a weather update. I gave it.

My forecast says no rain, but I’ll be watching on BSN.

Wet and nippy Drumchapel too. Had the bizarre situation earlier this afternoon where one side of the road was bone dry and the other was fully wet!

Giving Madsen the inside gate is an interesting decision.

Doyle’s pit cam Tough call. He was slightly ahead and his bike was in line more than Dudek’s. I feel like you shouldn’t have to exclude someone in that situation. Neither did much, if anything, wrong.

Well, that replay made it pretty clear to be honest.

Looked to me like Tai glanced the tapes, although I’m not sure I’d be confident enough to say he definitely did, which makes it hard to justify throwing him out.

Vaculik would surely be in third place if not for his injury mid season.

My guess is they wanted to keep Brennan at 5 to try to maximise his improvement. Personally, I think 5 has been a stretch for him and riding at 3 would’ve been better once Basso’s average went up. I do think having Tom at 5 and Ulle at 3 was a good move though.

Assuming Glasgow would be looking to keep Cook, Brennan and Basso, Pickering wouldn’t fit anyway. But if Basso were to leave, Josh would be an exciting replacement if he was available. Earlier in the season I wasn’t sure about keeping Craig, but his average is quite generous now and he’s shown flashes of his old self over the last couple of weeks. And he’s popular up here.

Exactly. I'll take getting smashed in the playoff semi finals and watching a madman leaving me with my jaw on the floor with ridiculous moves, over winning the league, every time. Excitement is far more important than winning for me.

The Premiership is a joke. Nothing against the teams, it’s just embarrassing there’s only six of them.

If they drop the points limit, it’ll be difficult for any team to fit Masters in without seriously compromising the rest of their lineup.

He may not, but I’m sure everyone at Glasgow will try to convince him to come back. He’s one of the most exciting riders in the league and that’s what they want in the team. If he can’t fit us in, so be it, but I’d be gutted if he turned up at another Championship team instead.

I think it’s probably time to move on from Broc and I think it would be good for Connor to ride somewhere else too. He’s great at Ashfield but needs to develop on other tracks. I’d be sad to see the back of him but I think he needs to get a bit more uncomfortable somewhere else to continue improving. I was really happy we brought Ulle back this year too, but I think that might be another sensible change. Craig and Basso would take us to about 17, plus Tom would be 24, Danyon makes it 30. So we’d need three riders to complete the set. If the points limit is lower, perhaps that looks like a bit of a top heavy lineup, but on the other side, potentially three riders on low averages with room to grow. I don’t have any immediate suggestions for those three gaps that are left. I had wondered about Lasse from the Monarchs if they aren’t racing, but he didn’t impress in the playoff QF. I still hold out hopes of seeing Marcin Nowak again. Those divebombs into turn 3 were filthy

I didn’t, as I got a rain off ticket so I’ll get in free next time. After ten heats, I’d have felt conned, but mainly because I think it was possible to get all 15 in.

Yes, I agree with a lot of this, I’ll just add one point. The Glasgow promotion are really keen to make sure racing at Ashfield is exciting. This is 100% the right attitude and it shows in the product. I understand and agree with calling off meetings ahead of time if they think the track might be OK to ride but rubbish for racing. Speedway is a sport, but it must also be entertaining and prioritising this is absolutely a good thing to do. Ashfield is an incredible track when the track staff have been able to do their job as they like to. There may be other tracks that do it just as well, but no one does it better. However, once a meeting has started, I do think the priority has to be completing the meeting is more important than the quality of racing, as long as the track isn’t unreasonable to ride on. I think that was the crux of the issue on Sunday. Obviously the meeting is in the referee’s gift, but there was too much noise on Sunday of “yeah, but the spectacle might be better another day”. It might be, but we’re here now, and people generally understand the affect of weather on racing quality in speedway. Alternatively, if the spectacle isn’t really the reason for the call off, it would probably be better not to mention it.

Yes, but I can’t easily remember the last time we had 60 put past us. Remember, Basso wasn’t riding at #1 for Poole. He’s come on fantastically but that was his first meeting at #1. Probably not the ideal time, and his ascent to the top has also been helped by Craig’s average reducing so much. If Craig and Basso were still at their old positions, I suspect Basso would’ve done better and Craig’s experience would’ve held up better. Hard to knock Basso though - he’s really excelled this season especially at home, and he made one of the most incredible passes I’ve ever seen at Ashfield only a few weeks ago. He’s an absolute delight to watch when he’s on it.

At this time of year, the track is definitely very different for our riders. Ground is colder, harder, and much more of a leveller than in the warmer months.