SPEEDY69

As with any insurance, it depends what the items are worth to you. I had my bikes insured for fire & theft.

I also expect whoever tops the league to pick Sheffield, should be a guaranteed final spot. Wolves would be hoping the Aces knock out the Panthers and Panthers will fear the Aces the most.

Our Ellis, almost continually tries rolling.

The rate of change in the climate is undoubtedly increased by us humans and we're feeling it now with more extreme weather. However, it is for Governments to do all they can to improve environmental impacts and reduce emissions etc. rather than put that onus on the general populous. I understand our government is about to sign-off on a new oil field excavation in the North Sea, to burn for fuel rather than look for sustainable solutions. Picking on private motorists whilst businesses utilise heavy-polluting vehicles (just how many diesel sucking vans are there in the UK now?!!) and air travel continues to pour out emissions high-up in the atmosphere seems pointless from an environmental perspective. Where is the new transport solution because we knows roads are just getting more and more clogged. As for speedway, if it becomes electric I won't be going, 'sounds' really boring and I'd rather it disappeared altogether so we can all just sit on our ars*s watching I'm a celebrity with all the other sheep.

Nothing wrong with motorsports in cities, other than exorbitant land costs/rent/business rates, plus transport to and from etc. Would not work for speedway I don't think. Seemingly, many people don't want motorsports in residential areas, nothing to do with noise but that's their excuse. Those people from Mildenhall were a pain I seem to remember. Massive noise from airplanes overhead but they moaned about the speedway, having moved into a house next door. As for future investments, do you really think they're not looking at other technologies, with the money you pay them for their current vehicles?

Nothing about football is interesting - not to me anyway So the players and foreign sponsors with their oversized Range Rovers, massive mansions for two people, helicopter and other aircraft frequent use don't come into it, just those on match day itself. Sounds like a gimmick to me but if it can carry some momentum then good. Society as a whole and Governments need to act.

Methanol is much less environmentally damaging than petrol and filthy diesel. Argument on that score surely lost with the vast increase in diesel vans & lorries that we have nowadays (who sees and exemption for commercial vehicles in the future?), a few speedway bikes is neither here nor there. And don't get me started on aircraft . Noise is also really annoying - 'local residents' who have chosen to move right next to a stadium. Speedway is about half an hour of bike noise once a week at most tracks. F1/road racing goes on for hours, sometimes over more than one day, which again is incomparable. A lot of football stadia are in residential areas and they produce plenty of noise for a couple of hours for a large part of the year but good luck trying to curb that!

E-speedway, no thanks. Battery vehicles will soon disappear anyway once people realise that the batteries are much more environmentally bad than they'd have you believe at present. Hydrogen engines may be one possibility for vehicles but piles of batteries dumped at sea/in the third world does not fill me with hope for e-vehicles.

Updates site has the last race wrong, King won, Cook was last.

Of your referring to the last bit, just taking what Ipswich said officially that Cook would return tonight subject to BSPL/SCB approval. He rode.

Nobody seems to know the real circumstances on here and a 'family issue' can also be pretty stressful, affecting you mentally. The BSPL seem to be consistent with all previous decisions referred to on here because they say you cannot return within seven days unless cleared by them, which he seems to have been?

That was positive but were there any things which changed what was on offer to the person who attended, or was it "some intro music, riders appear on bikes/line up and are introduced, toss a coin, 15 races interspersed with hits of the 80s and a bloke driving a tractor and someone saying it's Bert's birthday next week, next up is heat 3 etc. whilst the person stands around in the cold checking their social media and writing out their shopping list/picking their nails." This is not a criticism of Eastbourne because that's exactly what I see at many other tracks. 'Kids go free' has made me attend and a friend of mine but when there are are looking for something else to do, not just watch the racing.

Yes. However, there is so much more that could be done to provide entertainment and no longer are 15 races enough. I've said this so many times and whilst some may think it a circus, IOW are giving those who attend a great night and it's not just about the racing. People get bored and there needs to be more for them to do in venturing out to watch speedway. More interaction, other attractions for different age groups - how many teenagers/early 20s people love to hang out together away from their parents, what would they like to do at the speedway etc. etc. Play some out of date music and watch a tractor go around is not very compelling.

I disagree about there not being enough people, it appears it was simple financial mis-management. 1000 for break even is always going to fail so cut the expenditure/gravy from within the club.

Agreed. How many people were taking a salary out of the speedway income? This must be why their costs were so high they needed 1000 people to break even - I can't imagine it was rent for the stadium and if they did pay over the odds for riders' wages then it's clearly poor management.

Starke has been good value as well. At the start of the year Rowe was scoring well but this has changed. I'd dispense with the others but brings Heeps back as he also has the ability to overtake people, not just gate and go and I think the condition of the track affected him this season.

That may be but if you never ride on a wet track, you'll never ride on a wet track, kind of self fulfilling. We know the aussies hate it wet. I'd much prefer wet to bumpy. Lynn is so smooth. I remember Andy Smith bombing it around there years ago in either a commonwealth final or something which was very wet. "Oh no, I may have to wash my bike and race suit, best come back another day when it's dry, no skin off my nose." Maybe halve their money for rain offs when they want it off? Tail wagging dog.

Nope. Refs these days are easily railroaded by riders, backed up by their team manager.

Once the ref had called it off then there is no point. How do we know they didn't offer to try out.? No point getting sheffield to try it, they'd have ridden like numptys on purpose.

Riders have too much say these days. Holder will be fine in Poland, Batch better pack up for Aus because tracks are closing fast in the UK and they are not helping one bit.

The riders should hang their heads. Had to be some whinging aussies involved as well. Refuse to ride, then nowhere to ride. I've ridden on swamp like conditions, you adjust and get on with it.

My view is if the riders cannot make one league pay, then they get another job as well if they want to continue riding. This happened routinely in the past.

I think he can have a legitimate complaint because the reason for sanctions against anyone competing at IoW or another non-BSPA track are 'not in the interests of speedway' but about being in the cartel or not. It is not really much different to Poland restricting their riders competing in leagues overseas but the difference here is that it's all speedway in Britain and the promotion and benefit the IoW brings to that surely has to be recognised.

Erm no I don't! Just rely on them to tell me who's in the semis/final. If I was there in person I would though. Always good to see a good race at any level, passing or not, but the end result doesn't interest me (GP results that is).

BSPA made similar threats to anyone in the past riding at Lydd, because they didn't operate as part of the BSPA cartel. It is wholly petty and very short-sighted. It's long since overdue that the P was removed from their name.