Beirao

Would be interested to see the second half heat details for the Glasgow meeting if you get them.

April 21 will almost certainly be a Glasgow-Redcar KO Cup meeting but will it be at Glasgow or Redcar, both being Friday tracks. The second leg can't be run on April 28 as Redcar are racing Scunthorpe in the BSN competition. A Sunday meeting perhaps as the May gap looks to be for Semi finals. Will be a lot simpler if Berwick win through!

The January edition is now on line https://classicspeedwaymemories.webador.co.uk/ Read about Fixing the Fixtures - some imaginative and some weird fixture setting in the 60s Postscript to Dual Nationals - were Charlie Monk and Bill Landels eligible to ride for Australia Plus "Anyone Remember No2", Obituaries, Big Birthdays, Letters

April 21 would probably be v Redcar if they beat Berwick in the KO Cup and April 28 would be Berwick should they prevail. Similar three week gap in May between May 12 and June 2 looks like reserved dates for BSN and KO Cup semis. Just hope we progress in both competitions otherwise it's going to be a pretty sparse time. Most clubs have a back loaded fixture list being busy in August. Really need the weather to play ball then. Fingers crossed.

Agree with your assessment of Vissings likely scoring, but riding as a second string he'll get quite a few more BPs than before, so 6.50 -7.00 including BPs and GSA of 5.50 - 6.00

As long as the stadium is still there, clubs have a chance of coming back, so Eastbourne and hopefully Coventry are possibilities. To offset this both Armadale and Peterborough seem to be on borrowed time.

Take your point about the need to have an NDL, but with Armadale uncertain/unlikely- you tell me - there are only two Championship clubs tracking teams in both divisions - Berwick and Oxford. Might be wrong but Berwick seem to be ok with double headers so have the Championship fixtures been halved just to suit Oxford. Ironically most supporters predictions of the league finishing order have Berwick and Oxford misding the cut for the play offs so both clubs will have plenty of blank weeks at the end of the season!

Seems the NDL tail is wagging the Championship dog!

Justin Sedgmen remarked that the banking at Glasgow took a bit of getting used to but once you were dialled into it you were sorted. Does this sounds like your definition of Home Track Advantage? Its all a bit academic the track is there to be ridden by both the home and away teams. Unless home teams mess around with the track grading , particularly over the gates - Eastbourne please note! - then surely most tracks are fair, though some are more difficult than others.

To suit clubs who run teams in both the Championship and the NDL perhaps? Too tight a schedule for them? Do you need to go to all 11 meetings to come out ahead? Not sure that they represent great value.

My attempt to fill the void https://classicspeedwaymemories.webador.co.uk/ Hopefully a few articles each month. A Guid New Year to you all.

Like you I miss not having these excellent magazines dropping through my letterbox each month. As a contributor to both, I'm hoping to fill this void by putting a free online "magazine" up each month. The first "issue" can be found at https://classicspeedwaymemories.webador.co.uk/ Hope you like it. And a Guid New Year to you all. Best regards Doug Nicolson

Are there semi finals in next years playoffs ? Isn't it two groups of three with the winners racing in the final?

Something like £198 +£8 booking fee for standard season ticket for the guaranteed 11 meetings. To be any kind of a deal better than paying each week, the pay at the gate rate looks like being £20.

BSPL site for 2021 shows him to have had three home and one away meetings that count to a GSA, so he's going to need more than just one meeting to get an actual average

He rode in the requisite ten meetings for Birmingham and his figure just happens to come out at exactly 5.00.

Never had problems with him at Ashfield AFAIK. Always seems well settled here. Great signing.

Cami may well be one of Claus Vissing's friends on Facebook too and possibly wouldnt be the one from the club involved in negotiating deals and terms ..... just saying.

Not too much this year, previously free entry tickets, billboard advertising etc. TV advert campaign this year although the timing was all wrong, towards the end of July and saying Friday nights. There were only two Friday meetings in the next two months.

Don't think so. The owners hoped that we'd getter better crowds on what was once our traditional race night and one that was possible again once floodlights had been installed.

More than ever promoters need to get their pricing right. Putting up admission prices at a time domestic finances are under pressures that haven't been experienced in years is a recipe for disaster - and at a time when the Championship has been watered down. It's may be not the time to be speculating by spending heavily on advertising campaigns. I'd happily have accepted Stupid Mickey Mouse competitions to break up a completely barren couple of months. Not agreeing dates for these competitions was bordering on criminal.

And there lies the problem. We have a standard that we can't afford. Championship Riders should be semi professional and certainly shouldn't have paid mechanics. Riders were paid £1 a point in the Provincial League in 1964. This equates to about £25 at today's prices. On this basis £90 sounds too much. Riders were semi professional, all but the top men had day jobs. All riders just had one bike. If it blew then they used the track spare or were out for the night.

Are you sure?

Our problem has been the lack of heat winners away from home. 2019 was our best season and with a bit of luck we could have won the play offs and that was the year we had three strong heat leaders - Cook, Rasmus Jensen and Vissing. Teams that do well in the play offs usually have a strong top three.

I thought the racing was good at Shawfield even when racking up big scores as we had racers like Mick Powell and Jesper Olsen so it wasn't from the gate. Ashfield is a good track and is there to be raced on but interestingly Justin Sedgmen commentating on the BSN stream during one of the many gaps in racing at the abortive Poole meeting reckoned with the banking it took a bit of getting used to but once dialled in you had a good home advantage. Possibly this explains why we again have good racing and big home wins. Don't think there's anything to fear with the new points system. When used in the past the aggregate bonus point had little or no effect on the league champions. From memory only Exeter benefited from it ...and just once. In any case with the play offs it's a bit of an irrelevance.