arnieg

Wightlink Warriors and Wizards 2020 Season Report. Firstly, I hope this update finds you and yours in good health and good spirits. Like yours, our 2020 was like no other and the knock-on effect for the clubs and sport has been traumatic, frustrating along with many other expressions that spring to mind. For us, and many others, 2020 was a non-starter for the Wightlink Warriors and Wightlink Wizards on our track due to government restrictions for the use of stadiums preventing the publics attendance, which culminated in the sport’s governing body, the BSPL/SCB, abandoning any form of league racing. But that’s not the end of our 2020 story……… Did we actually get to go racing? Amazingly, yes we did. The Warriors got to go racing at Plymouth for a 3 Team Tournament involving Plymouth, Eastbourne and the Isle of Wight. The Warriors management team worked extremely closely with Plymouth to ensure that fans were safe in a Covid secure environment before the meeting which proved to be a huge success. This kind of meeting involves 4 riders representing each team and our quartet of Ben Morley, Tom Woolley, Connor Coles and Chad Wirtzfeld did a superb job missing out by just a single point for the top spot on the night. The result being Eastbourne 31, Isle of Wight 30 and Plymouth 28. It was a great meeting in front of 400 spectators and streamed live to a wider audience and while this wasn’t on the Island we can rightly feel proud that we helped enable this meeting to happen and we were able to represent you all with pride. In addition to the team efforts Chad Wirtfeld continued to ride on the grass in the few meetings available winning all in his class – so congratulations to him. What else did we do? BDO Darts Sponsorship Working with our partner ASGUK we managed to arrange for a super opportunity for the Warriors logo to appear on stage at the BDO Darts. This raised huge interest in the club and also excellent marketing with speedway fan and professional dart player Scott Mitchel ensuring our logo was not only on Eurosport but also around the world on his twitter and FB pages. GB Young Lions U21 Training Camp The Warriors provided 3 days of intense on and off track training with Neil Vatcher for the GB Young Lions. The camp offered the cream of Britain’s young riders the chance to develop their on track knowledge with expert riders Steve Worral and Paul Hurry as well as media, nutrition, and fitness classes. My First Skid With the relaxation to allow training and amateur sports events without spectators, we reintroduced My First Skid. Unfortunately, we could not allow the use of hire bikes and places were limited to 15 riders who owned all their own equipment and had to follow a strict Covid guide. This proved to be a great success allowing us to ensure that our track equipment remained functional and our island-based riders more time to further develop their skills. Re-run of Meetings via Speedway Portal We have worked since the start with Speedway Portal and its owner Andy Hague. Andy has established a full history of the Wightlink Warriors from our very first fans forum, when we nervously announced our plans to return speedway to Smallbrook. Andy and his team have recorded almost every home meeting since 2016 and the quality and ingenuity is clear to see – so much so Andy is now invited to film at other stadiums across the UK. Andy asked Martin and I if we would like to stream our meetings for free to fans to ensure we keep them engaged with the Warriors and the sport in general. Of course, and we didn’t need to be asked twice because for us not only did we engage with our fans but by watching re-runs we can see where we can improve on race day as well as afford our sponsors more airtime which is always a great thing. Our re-runs were so popular that it encouraged our governing body and other clubs to do the same. Moving forward with Speedway Portal, we shall continue to stream our meetings for our fans throughout the winter period up until press day and should there be a delay to the season start we will continue to spread the Warrior Way using this forum. Hot Heats Unannounced spectacular races from across our seasons to keep the Warriors in the minds of fans across the nation and beyond. Rob Dyers Speedway Quiz From the start of the 1st lockdown our track announcer Rob Dyer produced a weekly quiz for fans to participate in. This proved extremely popular and indeed encouraged our own governing body and other clubs to produce their own. Virtual Skid Virtual Skid came about as a way to create a real meeting using historic footage. Working with Speedway Portal we invented an algorithm that would take 4 meetings, (60 races) and jumble them all up so to give 15 race choices of A, B, C or D. We invited two celebrity team managers, selected from ex-riders, referees, sponsors and super fans to try and guide their team to victory by selecting each race. So far, we have produced 15 meetings, all available on YouTube including one which raised over £1000 for the Ben Fund. Face Masks. The club has raised well over £1000 for charity from the sale of Warrior branded face masks. We employed two methods for the face masks. Firstly, key workers, no matter what they did could request one for free while anyone who was not a key worker we requested a donation and anything over the cost price we gave to charity. We gave £605 to Capt Tom, £261 to Mountbatten Hospice (IOW) and £250 Speedway Riders Benevolent Fund to injured Speedway Riders. And there is more. Even today, volunteers are giving their time and effort to ensure that Smallbrook Stadium is on point and ready to go and ready to serve the community in every way. We have refurbished rooms, improved areas and much more. We know it is a long continuous process but without your support nothing our volunteers do would be possible and Martin and I thank you so much for it. Our drive and enthusiasm is as strong as ever as we look to continue to win awards, trophies but most of all provide the best night out in Speedway in the UK. With 2021 just around the corner, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support this year, to assure you that we have continued to do our bit for club, community, and sport and together we look forward to a fabulous 2021. May we also take the opportunity, early to be safe, to wish you and yours a wonderful Christmas time and a brilliant New Year. All the best Barry

Record here: http://www.zuzel.ugu.pl/index.php?profil=3021&tab=1

Given the filing exemptions for small companies there is really very little that you can infer from the information at Companies House.

And that's exactly how British speedway behaved in the 1970s, which is one of the reasons we got to where we are now.

Additionally some foreign riders, including Danes may be uncertain about visa eligibility should there be a hard brexit followed by an 'Australian style' visa system.

There's no 'may or may not' about it, they definitely don't. Presumably you are alleging they did not account for VAT on a material part of their income (maybe sponsorship or under declared gate receipts?) or simply failed in their basic VAT compliance issues.

Found the year - 1995

Yes in the Elite League knock out Cup one year in the 90s. Silly idea quickly dropped.

A magazine consisting entirely of adverts would still be zero rated. Advertising leaflets are zero rated.

Can I point out programmes are zero rated. However racecards are standard rated as they are principally for filling in. The HMRC leaflet on leaflets (!) and other printed materials provides very precise guidelines. For example a political or marketing leaflet is zero rated unless more than one third of it is a coupon or survey for filling in, detaching and returning. I believe the Sheffield 'pizza menu' racecards of a few years back were VATable, but in general speedway programmes will be zero rated.

As a former tax consultant with plenty of experience of Inland Revenue (that dates me!) can I endorse this. Unless something truly outrageous has been going on I would think the odds of a criminal prosecution are very low and of imprisonment lower still. One IR investigation I dealt with involved a speedway promotion - ironically one of the few really honest speedway promoters I've encountered.

I think you are recalling the World Pairs which used 6 rider races for a few years until 1990 when there was a serious injury to Piotr Swist in a semi and another major crash in the final. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Speedway_World_Pairs_Championship#:~:text=The 1990 Speedway World Pairs,and the less fancied Australia.

But it clearly Isn't. Clean Sports do an excellent job.

Ritchie: http://www.zuzel.ugu.pl/index.php?profil=2885&tab=1 Steve: http://www.zuzel.ugu.pl/index.php?profil=3010&tab=1 Neither rode in Poland in 2019 or '20.

I was wrong, it was SIX (yes six!!) times 4 August 2016 George Piper (IoW) v Bradley Andrews (Cradley) Piper took seven rides after fellow reserve Tyler Govier withdrew following a ht 2 fall. With Andrews on song and getting extra rides the pair met in heats: 2,4,8, 11,12 and 14. Andrews beat Piper 4-2 which was crucial as Heathens won the match 45-44.

I'm pretty sure I've seen two reserves race each other 5 times at the Isle of Wight.

Not sure the Govt. has made it up to this Wednesday... and that was yesterday

I'm assuming this will be behind closed doors, but with just 6 days to go surely it is time to make that official. Weather forecast looks a bit dicey.

The problem with using empirical data is that you need to tease out the differences between variances that are due to random chance and those attributable to actual biases. For example if Roger Rabbit who somehow fluked his way into the GP series and came last in every round had draw numbers 2,3 & 4 in most rounds then to what extent is his poor performance caused by being in those positions vs. the extent to which the scores from those numbers are adversely effected by the frequency with which Rabbit appeared in those positions. (see for example http://blog.philbirnbaum.com/2011/08/tango-method-of-regression-to-mean-kind.html in the context of baseball) The question is does 152 GPs give us a large enough sample to remove the affect of random chance? It seems quite possible that all but the most egregious of variances will be due to chance. Some things do stand out from this analysis, notably the huge advantage offered by gate 1 in heat 1 and that you don't want to be in yellow after a track grade. I wonder to what extent biases in gates are damped by overtakes - table 11 suggests a strong correlation between number of passes and the variances shown in that table with Krsko and Prague having much higher variances than Malilla. Interesting to see the input from Phil Morris too. Anyway I do love a good discussion on Steiner systems (I first encountered them when doing my Oxbridge entrance exam, and immediately saw I was dealing with the 20 heat individual speedway race format).

And now the season is over (bar a couple of loose ends) thank you for accompanying us on what has been a very unusual speedway journey.

It's irrational too. In a 3 all whether you get a bonus can depend on whether the rider at the back coasts over the line or pulls of the track a few metres from thd finish.

Yes no bonus point if it's a 3 all with 3 finishers or a 5- nil

Rookie error from Dave Goddard, Sayfutdinov did not get a paid maximum. He didn't get a bonus point in heat 11.

Well you have your answer!!

And hearty congratulations are due, as she did it again in her second ride!