False dawn

Under this system, it's theoretically possible to become world champion without winning a race.

That's why Greg always felt at home in Cardiff. I'll get my coat.

That only sorts out two riders in the same semi. It seems that an exclusion from one semi where only 3 riders are lining up, trumps a 4th place finish in the other semi

Be careful what you wish for. If anticipating the tapes was allowed, more riders (all?) would be at it. Then you'd need super slomo to see who touched the tapes first!

What about poor old Vaclav Milik. He managed to finish 17th out 16

I think Doyle gets the nod because he was effectively excluded from 3rd place.

That is the rule. As was said on TV, maybe the ref thought the two jump starts only deserved one warning/exclusion

If you get excluded, you carry a warning from then on.

3 new track records in 6 races

Having been to every round so far this year (with the exception of my local track Leicester, which was held behind closed doors), I can highly recommend this meeting. And by gum, they do get on with these meetings, signalling the 2 minute warning before the riders from the previous heat have even reached the back straight. I hope the timing of this meeting has not escaped the promotion / referee. They have 2 hours to avoid a clash with the GP.

Thanks for runnning the competition R and R. If they keep reducing the number of rounds in the series, I might make it through the entire competition

Maciej Janowski £100 more Artem Laguta £100 more

Maciej Janowski £50 less (I want this to be wrong) Tai Woffinden £50 less (it pains me to do it)

Belle Vue - 10th October I bought two tickets for this meeting the minute I heard they were on sale. Strangely only back straight tickets were avialable online but undetered I went ahead. A few days later I spotted postings on here indicating that granstand seats were avialable. I wrote (nicely) to BV asking for an explanation and enquiring if it were possible to exchange my tickets. This was more in hope than expectation. Well ye of little faith Fd. The nice folks from up north invited me to ring and they would see what could be done. I duly rang this morning and a very pleasant lady cancelled my original purchase, helped me select two very good replacements and chatted for a few minutes about the difficulties of running meetings and the prospects for the SON meeting (nothing new to report, I'm afraid). I promised to publicly acknowledge BV's assistance in this matter and so that's what I'm doing. Thank you for your gracious treatment of my request for help.

And that's from someone in Stockport!

Time to dust off my stopwatch. I'm going in the ref's box

Good analysis. However, you do have to make an adjustment. The total race points available from 23 heats is 138. Whereas the total championship points available is 146. So you have to to inflate the race points by nearly 6% to make the comparison. Thus the gain/loss for each competitor now looks like this: 1 2 total pts +/- Freddie Lindgren 37% 10 11 21 30 9 Matej Zagar 14% 6 4 10 12 2 Max Fricke 14% 2 8 10 12 2 Tai Woffinden 13% 12 15 27 32 5 Gleb Chugunov 8% 6 8 14 16 2 Patryk Dudek 3% 5 7 12 13 1 Bartosz Zmarzlik 2% 11 14 25 27 2 Maciej Janowski 0% 17 19 36 38 2 Jason Doyle -6% 5 3 8 8 0 Niels-Kristian Iversen -6% 3 11 14 14 0 Antonio Lindback -6% 1 1 2 2 0 Artem Laguta -9% 20 13 33 32 -1 Mikkel Michelsen -14% 5 7 12 11 -1 Leon Madsen -16% 13 7 20 18 -2 Emil Sayfutdinov -18% 11 6 17 15 -2 Martin Vaculik -26% 11 4 15 12 -3

When, not if.

But as was pointed out in Talk Dirty, riders are only allowed 2 "mechanics". Doesn't leave many free hands/eyes to be watching the relevant gate performance . Mind you. It doesn't stop a rider having someone in the stands doing that job and texting one of the team just before the semis. Any riders reading this, please PM me. I have a good piece of tech for this type of analysis

Leon Madsen £200 more

No offence Neil, but the big difference is that those meetings aren't part of a series. I'm at a loss as to why they changed the system. We heard last night that they want competitors to keep pushing throughout the meeting, to make every race matter. Well every race did matter under the old system, not just for the one meeting, but right until the last race of the series. If you've got a reasonable score during the qualifying races now, the only thing you're racing for is gate choice. This can be critical but not always (last night for example). I, for one, never had a problem with the GP winner not necessarily being the top scorer. The meeting final and the points scored counted for different things. And you could easily work out each competitors meeting and year to date series score as I was doing race by race during the meeting in Torun last October. As others have said, if you really wanted to achieve an improved solution (?), simply increase the points awarded in the final (and maybe even in the semis as well).

Great camera work

Maciej Janowski £100 more Bartosz Zmarzlik £100 less

Strange isn't it? You race a multi round, prestigeous competition and come second and you're not automatically "promoted" if the winner qualifies for the GPs some other way. But if you finish 4th in a one off meeting with a relatively poor line up, you do. No offence R&R. You're not responsible for the FIM.

I stand corrected. And I'm pleased to be wrong (I hope the Missus ain't reading this). Seriously I am. I thought I'd read otherwise some months ago. Did they change the rules again since? So, did Vaclav Milik, by running wide in the final turn of heat 19 last night, not only lose a chance of a run off for a top 3 place (or even a top 1 place) but also 4th place? By my figuring he finished 5th behind Aleksandr Loktajev on race wins. An extremely expensive mistake (possibly).