RoundTheBoards

Peter Schroeck. (Would have been Sam Ermolenko, but he's retired to spend more time with his wooden spoon collection.)

Seem to have missed the answer to the question... Champions of Great Britain 2016 Danny King 2017 Craig Cook 2019 Charles Wright Yes. They wouldn't get anywhere near Gilkes even. And two of them are dead.

World No.2, World No4., Six former British Champions. Apart from the injured Tai Woffinden, who else exactly do you want in there?

Turns 15 next January.

Yes, and because they have a facility they can use any 2.00 CL rider as a guest. If they didn't have a facility, they'd be limited to using someone who is in NDL only.

Yes. With a facility they can use a 2.00 guest from another CL team. With a "reduced facilty" because he's below 2.65 they couldn't use the 75% option and would have to use a NDL rider.

Doyle and Sayfutdinov both had 8+1, so I think everyone would see that higher than 7+2. Like you say both gave excuses for ducking out, leaving Thompson as next in line.

Think your maths is a bit wrong. Going by Speedway Updates (Ignoring heat 15) the Ippo top-scorers should have been: King 10+1, Brennan 10, Ellis 8+2, and a toss of a coin between Doyle 8+1 and Sayfutdinov 8+1. Brum should have been: Jepsen Jensen 9, Jeppesen 5+1, Rew 5, Vuolas 2+1 So it looks like the pay rates couldn't have been too good as Doyle, Sayfutdinov, Jesper Jensen, Jeppesen and Rew all ducked it. Fair play to Thompson, Musielak, Hume and Edwards for taking part. I'd say it reflects worse on Doyle and Sayfutdinov for ducking out as it's their home club.

Who is offering Ipswich -16 ? Bet365 have it at -28

Not like you to talk sense. I expect you did it by accident. Leicester protected him as their RS so no one else could have him. Then drop him straight away once there's nowhere else he can go.

No doubt the pricing was spot on. The "It's going to be an empty stadium" brigade are very quiet now.

Anyone heard anything about Owlerton Stadium? Apparently Stock Cars have been kicked out with immediate effect due to lack of space, with the stock car pits being taken over by solar panels and their associated storage batteries. Rumours also that Greyhounds are on borrowed time? Where does this leave speedway? Anyone close to the club know anything?

You're spot on. In the early days of cinder tracks it was hard to produce a good starting area, as the back wheel spinning dug big ruts, worse than the ruts dug in modern shale tracks. Also electric cables to operate the starting gate etc often ran under the track and needed protection. In those glorious days before Health & Safety, the easiest solution was to concrete over the starts. Again, as you say, this was dangerous due to a lip being created which would act as a take-off ramp, and dangers due to the increasing grip on change of surface. (As previously discussed with riders hitting a concrete kerb and taking off - the coefficient of friction between a rubber tyre and concrete is much higher than that between rubber and shale). Also, as anyone who has looped a bike will attest, landing on a shale track hurts a lot, but landing on concrete hurts a hell of a lot more. As track preparation techniques improved, with better quality shale surfaces replacing cinders, concrete starting grids were banned.

LOL no. Seems I wasted all those years studying physics, back in the day. Not to mention the 50 years of watching speedway from both sides of the fence. Going to have to recondition my brain now, so that it thinks all those riders that I've seen hitting the kerb and picking up from the excess drive, never happened.

So a speedway bike sliding on shale, suddenly hitting a solid concrete kerb with the back wheel wouldn't pick up traction and be driven forward in a straight line? Well you live and learn eh?