Najjer

Him and Michelson have the highest averages

Bet365 didn’t offer anything at all last year and looks to still be the case this year. They offer Premiership from over here and then Esktraliga and Division 1 from Poland aswell as the top tier in Sweden and the occasional Danish match, as well as GPs and SEC.

Great news for all at Plymouth that Kennett can continue in the side. The other signing seems to have hit snagging problems in that he is already riding over here in the Premiership aswell as abroad and was veto‘d on that reason. Seems crazy when there is a rider shortage as there is without blocking teams further. Not to worry for Plymouth fans, as on the face of it they have a fantastic team, especially around their home track.

That in lies the problem with the team manager - Allen should of been replaced in heat 9 off the back of Brennan winning the previous heat.

There is limits - Esktraliga is 1 extra league and Division 1 and 2 is 2 extra leagues

It certainly explains the heat 15 picks along with the choice to give Allen 4 rides and Brennan only 4 rides after winning 2 races

Is Lemon still the team manager?

Maybe Eddie wasn’t keen on landing himself with a 28 day ban for withholding his services, in the hope he would be signed up by a weekend track?

Nobody is blaming the clubs decision to sign those riders but more the rule setters - who are the clubs after all!

Name names….

A 28 day ban and the ability to use a guest. I think everybody would sooner have their own riders in their team other than guests so they would want to be avoiding a ban.

Also a joke system and has ruined the play offs there too.

So basically if I’ve got this right, in theory a team who draws 10 matches but wins the super heat could be level on points with a team who wins 10 matches - only in speedway!!

Birmingham don’t ride every Wednesday for starters and Vissing won’t ride every match in Denmark either. The Danish season doesn’t start until much later either. If planned correctly it shouldn’t be a problem - the ‘planned correctly’ is the important part of that statement though….

When Vissing was announced they said it’s taken a while to finalise the deal because of the logistics. Presumably this has been aligning calendars with Vissing and Holsted to ensure that situation doesn’t happen.

I quite agree - hence the introduction of the bonus point and the potential for more excitement with aggregate scores and a potential run off too is much better… than trying to decide a winner from a drawn match!

I get the theory behind this, to try and create some entertain towards the end of a meeting to get an overall winner - but to achieve that, surely you are better served to return to the old bonus point system and if the scores are tied on aggregate then go to a run off! The scoring system is one of the few things British Speedway has got right in recent times… and now it was a success they’ve decided to balls it up! Can’t make it up! Edit - missing word in original post

That’s fair enough, but if Proctor wasn’t available and has signed for Birmingham then where were they going then? There is a huge lack of riders and when injuries start occurring then where are they coming from?

More races for each rider which means more money in their pockets too - what’s not to like?

I decided to post this here because although it’s something that effects the Premiership aswell (Belle Vue) it is certainly proving to be a bigger stumbling block for the Championship sides with Birmingham, Berwick and now Plymouth. I called for it before and am amazed that this problem wasn’t foreseen by the promoters and the rule setters in this country. It’s certainly too late to do anything about it this year and change the rules this close to the season… although stranger things have happened! With the way of the world, flight uncertainties and rising air fares/costs, visas and just general lack of rider availability I seriously think that 6 man teams would help with this going forward - that’s without mentioning what will happen once injuries start occurring this year as there just isn’t a pool of riders to come in and replace anybody. This has to be something that happens for 2023.

When you’re dreaming of Tungate, Zagar, Lebedevs, Bewley, Woffinden… and Etheridge gets announced. I can only imagine the disappointment if you was a BV fan

Something that works in Iversen’s favour potentially is that in Poland he’s in a side that can only use two out of him, Kurtz and Lahti. Given the way things have gone for him in Poland the last couple of years it’s not a dead cert he will be riding every match so will be good for him to be riding regular in Britain and hopefully staying injury free.

Riders from the league below is a much more plausible idea to start the season with in my view, yes. Either that or run with their existing squads they have in place or sign up any other free agents.

The situation is pretty rubbish but there is no way they should be allowed to use RR. It’s the sort of thing that gets laughed about in British Speedway and shouldn’t be allowed to use RR for a banned rider at the start of a season.

One thing this rider shortage does prove is that those people calling for one big league over the last few seasons were proved wrong, in that there is nowhere near enough riders to go round. There is probably some legs in the limiting of signing riders over a certain average - but again, you’d have thought this problem would of been foreseen by the governing body and not an afterthought because teams are struggling to complete their teams (in both divisions too!)