The Doctor...

It's a nice thought, but with the best will in the world, it just aint gonna happen is it. Speedway is only recognised by Sport England through the Acu, so you'd need to get in bed with them for a start, Then like RaymondBudd says, you'd need to probably ease off on the speedway bit, and push the community bit and getting kids more active or something. Didnt Kings Lynn do something along these lines before ? Going 100% on improving british speedway as the be all and end all will get nowhere. Team GB enter how many tournaments ? One ? How can you sell that to Sport England ? Their little statement is something along the lines of encouraging recreation and sporting excellent in england or something. Getting a few kids to represent their country at speedway once a year in a sport that encourages zero recreation will be a hard old sell. Good luck whoever fancies that one.

Ah so we should be just scratching the bellies of these brave boys eh ? I dont think so.

[ Well Tai has just done an interview all glum faced and pouty for a start.. Both of them are playing the sympathy card for the media, no question.

Yep..and to be honest, all this guff about both Pedersen and Woffinden riding injured and all the sobs stories is bugging me a bit now. Either ride and keep schtum, or let your injury heal, and get some rest. The constant back patting is grinding a bit now.

You need help mate..

I'm certainly not old but i have to admit i do this very thing at Arsenal where i have a season ticket. I've got a bottle top thing that goes on my keyring, and hey presto, it comes into play once i'm past the stewards. Not had any problems. Still daft though - my bottle throwing days have long gone now..

Erm, i'm no Liberace here, but i'm guessing it was just trying to be a bit dramatic. Not a bad idea from what i saw and a nice change from the norm. It looked to me like the drill would have been for the riders to have defrocked a couple of seconds before their name check, so that when the spotlight came on when their name was mentioned, ta-da......there they were... Imo, it didnt work too well when most of them were still half covered as their name was read out.

Commonplace in a lot of sporting and music events nowadays i'm afraid. A bottle, plastic tho it may be, could be used as some sort of missile apparently. A good few places will just insist that the lid is confiscated meaning you've got an open bottle for however long you make the drink last... Erm, maybe i've got completely the wrong end of things here, but weren't the cloaks only used to blackout the riders from being spotted before they were announced ? I very much doubt that the idea of a rider appearing from a dracula cloak would be seen as entertaining in the slightest, even by the most deluded of pr people at img.

Agree totally. It was cringeworthy how after his heat 3 exclusion, he kept going on about admittedly jumping the start the first time, but thought he did nothing wrong the second time! The man is either utterly deluded or has got a medical condition affecting his memory. Or he's just a cheat... who knows.. Regardless, a pathetic spectacle from an experienced rider.

With respect, the bloke has gone way beyond what any pr official with Bsi (Img) would be doing in passing on info to some frankly cretinous people on this forum. If you take out the contribution he has made on this subject alone, what we would have been left with ? Lindback's tweets, Pedersen's picture ? Wonderful... I'm sure a good number of people travelling long distance were assured by his posts giving updates.

Unless things have drastically changed from my years of working at Cardiff, the shale comes in open trucks. And about 30 or 40 different runs if memory serves. And as others have said, the wind up comment made by shadders, was a wind up...calm down a bit maybe.

Probably no announcement in light of the fact that in their eyes, business is, to a point, as usual. They plan to start at the time they have to. What goes on in the days and hours up til then isnt important. They think they can pull off a raceable track by the time the fim open the meeting, and it's up to them to do it. If it goes wrong on live tv, then thats their beef. It will be on.

There is a difference between laying the meat of the track itself, and creating the whole track area (fencing etc), which having seen it at close quarters in the past, can often drag things out. They obviously wont be laying the entire track area, so they obviously fancy their chances of pulling it off. Cheers Mr Rising for the sensible update.

Are you sure ? Have you ever seen a meeting at an Australian track ? I'm guessing none, maybe one. Nice, tidy racing tracks is what you will find out there - certainly nothing that will give anyone a huge advantage. And to answer your question as to why there is never a world cup event in Aus, it's simply because no one wants to host it. Feel free to educate me as to what tracks could and would afford to commit to a meeting like that, and even dream of attracting a 5000+ crowd to even break even.

Manchesterpaul.. erm...he posted a link for heat 14 anyway straight away did he not ? i've just watched it anyway

I've just remembered..doesn't Tomek come home to Bydgoszcz tomorrow with Gorzow ? F**k that must be a hard meeting to watch

Good to hear you got back safely Mateusz - it looked an excellent night on the tv coverage Tomek certainly had myself and Rico in his corner tonight.. i hope you had a few drinks to celebrate this latest triumph "jebac torun, jebac "

With all respect i don't think Newport is the best place really. The problem is that the promoters have to actually bid for the meetings, and if there is no take up for them, then its always going to go to tracks like Workington who know that they'll get a saturday night crowd, hence they put a bid in to get the meeting - they're hot favourites and the fans in the town know they're pretty much onto a winner no matter how crap their league season has been. Lots of fickle home fans wanting to see a win = Easy money in the bank. The Sunday 4TT's at Peterborough gave me some of my happiest memories in speedway so i'm a little biased, but it really was a the perfect place i think - big open spaces for those people wanting to have bbq's in the car parks, plenty of bars, wide open terraces, and a decent track not too far from every corner of the country. And Roman Matousek throwin punches at people on the back straight....ah happy days Under the current format of bidding for events, it will never go back to Peterborough unless they start to get a few quid in the bank, or unless the old super7 team realise they're going to lose fans by having it at the same old tracks year in year out.

Yeh looked a terrible one for him. Seemed to travel a long way with the bike bashing him all over too. Couldnt really see exactly how Balinski came off as the cameras kept showing replays from some weird angles that kinda didnt show exactly what how he hit the fence or if the bike hit at all. An excellent nights racing apart from that i thought. The 20 heat formula did my head in a little bit at the end tho - a grand final with the top 4 would have been the perfect finale for me, but i guess the result was the right one in the end.

I didn't think it looked too bad actually. Looked a bit wet at heat one but its evened out a bit now i would say. The stadium looks amazing. Only in Poland could they get a dedicated speedway stadium together like that.. Anyway, back to the meeting.

Speedway only looks amateurish because people keeping banging on and on and on about it... Blimey, you watch the meeting fully in the knowledge of the rules, yet people come out moaning like stink afterwards. I assume the same people moaning here because they don't like Poland winning the event with a joker, would also be the same people creaming it when TeamGb benefited from a joker like they did in both the qualifier and the race off ? I'm also just guessing that if the GB team won the meeting in the same style as Poland did yesterday there would be no mention of this at all, but "Team GB World Champions" would be on every thread with calls for Chris Harris to win sports personality of the year!? Yawn....

australia had 6 heat winners and poland had 8. aus had more lasts than poland. we could go on and on. rules are rules. the australians would have used their joker and won the meeting in the same way if they had the chance. don't be so naive to think otherwise.

And by the same token, he clearly wasn't, to a lot of others. As harsh as it sounds, if he was a major figure to everyone, there would no doubt have been some gesture made by teamgb.

You keep using the word "disgrace"...maybe if the authorities actually refused to allow the team to wear armbands, then by all means, call it a disgrace, but for overlooking it...disgrace isn't the word. Disappointing yes...disgrace no. You said "no one, management, riders, or former riders paid any respect to Kenny" - that's only an assumption by you there...no one knows if the team gb manager didnt mention it in any team talks he might have had. And who knows if for example Woffinden might have had a quiet thought about him during the evening ? No one knows...bit harsh to assume things just because you didnt see them yourself. The other sports you mentioned may well wear armbands when high profile figures pass away, but again, i'm sorry, but put a football spin on it - would the England football team wear black armbands if the Scunthorpe United football manager had died ? Sorry to sound harsh, but they just wouldn't. Clearly you have strong opinions on it, and fair play to you - i hope the bspa or whoever get back to you with a response that you don't find is a disgrace.

I assume you've emailed the bspa / teamgb or whoever else as well have you ? There was an ex rider who died last week also, so is it disgraceful he wasn't remembered either. Don't get me wrong here, its a valid question from you i guess, and it would have been nice to see him remembered in that way - but calling it disgraceful and saying people should hang their heads in shame is way way over the top. I would be pretty surprised to see, let's say, the Polish team with armbands on to remember a manager from, for example, Poznan. To be honest, i can't really think of any other sport other than football that does it much if at all.