DaveWayne

Stock cars / Bangers don't run weekly at Northampton. Sometimes they are on consecutive weekends, but usually there are 2 or 3 weeks between meetings. Interestingly, I was watching interviews with F1 stock car drivers last night from the meeting held there last Saturday and they were commenting that there was more material on track than at the previous meeting. One thing that should please everyone is that I am not seeing any complaints on here about the surface being rough last night, despite there being torrential rain mid-meeting on Saturday night. If there were going to be issues I would have expected them to show up after that.

So after Ipswich fans spending the last couple of seasons complaining about how dangerous the Sheffield track is, they are all very quiet about dangerous riding by one of their team. 🤔

Etheridge was a gamble, but one worth taking with such a low average, especially if he could rediscover his form of a few seasons ago. The problem at the moment is that all of the top 5 seem to be struggling to gate consistently so they are having to try and come from behind all the time. Killeen has scored 10+5 from 5 meetings. What more is an RS expected to do ? I think he is worth persevering with as he is always pressuring and looking for a way through. Once he gets settled into the track at Owlerton I think he could surprise a few.

The 'beams' that you refer to are not going to be cut off. They support the top rope for the stock cars and are an essential part of the safety fence. They have the same thing at Kings Lynn so why would they need to be removed at Northampton ?

I stand on turn 3/4 at Owlerton so all the winners come past me and take the applause, it's only the home straight they are missing out. 😉

Tigers lost last night on the gate. None of the 3 heat leaders were getting out of the gate well, and also Flint was struggling compared to last year where his gating was key to his scoring. Not sure what has happened to Jack Holder, but his gating was poor last year for both Sheffield and in the GPs, and it looks to be continuing. Killeen could be a very good RS from what I have seen in the 2 home matches. Once he gets used to the track he could surprise a few. Battled in every race but just couldn't find the pass.

Sheffield won the KO Cup and topped the league table in 2024 with Edwards and Gilkes.

I think Belle Vue are out whatever happens due to their negative points difference. If Sheffield and Leicester each win their home legs and Leicester take the aggregate point, all 3 teams finish on 5 points but one of those 2 will end up with a positive points difference, so it's impossible for Belle Vue to finish top.

The irony of this being that Belle Vue did get the graveyard gate early doors but were only 6 points down. The damage was done in heats 7-11 when Sheffield had gate 3 for 4 consecutive races.

So it's exactly the same then. Tac subs allowed in the league phase, but not in the knockout phase.

Are tactical substitutes allowed in the playoffs ?

You missed all the excitement leaving that early. All the Aces fans suddenly woke up and chanted "Bewley, Bewley, Bewley" when you finally got a heat advantage in heat 12. Pity the match was already over by then. 😉

Belle Vue fans won't need to worry about what it's called soon anyway. By the end of the Easter weekend they will be concentrating on the league. 😉

Just out of interest, how would the two of you suggest that they run a knockout cup with 6 teams ? Assume 2 would be seeded into the semis, so would that be the 2 finalists from last season ? As Northampton would be one of the quarter finalists, that would delay the whole competition as they are not going to be ready to ride at home until the end of the month. Yes, we can all be cynical about it, but I would say the format chosen for this year is probably the best option in the current circumstances.

That's ok - they will be in the same league as at least one Nottinghamshire team next season, possibly two if County come up to join us. 😉