Grachan

Complain about modern day speedway if you like, but try to keep the arguments real. Team riding is not throwing a race in a team competition.

I don't like the double points rule, but your argument about throwing races doesn't add up. They are on the same team.

Was Lambert clutching his goolies then after that crash?

You must have hated the old days when more riders used to team ride.

I think the TR had a more dramatic effect on crowd levels than a lot of people believe. I definitely noticed a visible drop in attendance from the start of the year it was introduced.

True. Normally after heat 6.

1 - The problem here is a lack of riders. One old style league of 18 teams would pretty much use up all the riders who race here at the moment. 2 - Not good for me. I always thought the Danish league seemed poor for that very reason. 3 - So we'd have matches cancelled for teams being unable to put together a side. That would cause forum meltdown!! 4 - Restrict the leagues they can ride in, and guess which one they'll opt out of. I don't know what the solution is, really, with so many guests. One would be to sort out the fixture list to minimise absences for riders in more than one team. Maybe use R/R more often for lower members of the side.

Fine for Speedway Mail match reviews. Not so great for team building.

Whatever Havelock's real reasons, his safety stance was vindicated when Chris Holder slid across the track on the first corner and there were no Coventry riders there to get injured.

If they knew from the weather forecast that the meeting would be abandoned, why did they go?

So do you propose going back to the old 6 heats rule that we had in the good old days? We had the same problems then but it wasn't down to Sky. In the good old days 6 heats were regularly forced through and then everyone sent home with no refund. I don't think the rule itself is the problem, it's the way it's applied. Last night should have been called off around heat 8.

It looks like there's nobody there at all!

Well that's not a system open to abuse is it??!!

Troy Bachelor had the same problem last week.

Don't be so sure. I had someone on Speedway Friends claiming that the old BL2 in 1980 was stronger than the current EL. This is because not only did they have loads of riders with averages over 9.00 but they also managed to do it from 13 heats instead of 15.

How to make simple maths seem complicated!! Funny thing is I was discussing this on the dreaded 'Speedway Friends' yesterday. I wonder if the two are linked in any way.

Quite right. It's amazing how many people seem to struggle to get their head round this apparently simple fact. Averages are the average per ride x 4. Heat 15 gives 2 riders 5 rides, but their average is the average for every 4 rides. It's not a straight case of points scored divided by number of meetings.

Does that include you?

Indeed. In fact this can be a problem at Swindon sometimes, with the sun getting low over bends 3 and 4 at certain times of the year. Even on Tuesday they announced that they were going to wait a couple of minutes as the sun was just setting and making it difficult to see. It never caused a major delay, but I have known meetings in the past where they've had to wait for the sun to disappear.

Yeah. Hands up on that one. I was maybe thinking about my own situation where it's difficult to know before the day whether or not I can go, but (along with good weather, good promotion and it being half term) it worked a treat and we had a good crowd. In the end, i bought a couple of tickets the day before and took advantage of the offer myself too. It's great, also, to actually get a good night of speedway once the crowds are in, and hopefully some will return. This was a reminder that speedway can be a great night out if done properly so well done Swindon. They even got the music right (one of my other bleats in the past!!) Once you get the larger crowds in, you will also get a more partisan home crowd and more reactions like this. I realisse at Belle Vue you only get a few die hard enthusiasts in, but maybe you'll see more of it there too next year. I don't cheer when riders fall off, but I don't see a problem with it as long as it's not a serious accident. That's the sort of thing that gets the atmosphere going. That's "atmosphere" DAC. Don't worry. You'll hopefully have some of that next year.

Difficult to comment without knowing the full reasoning behind the decision.

I look forward to seeing a video of you at work with food poisoning. Should be a right larf.

He had food poisoning.

When did the Rory Schlein accident he referred to happen?

The guy's heart if clearly not in it. there would have to be reasons for that. OK, he shouldn't have signed for Leicester if that was the case but I don't see why people think they know better what is going on inside his head than he does himself. I don't know him personally, but if he says that these accidents have affected him then why doubt it. Maybe those slagging him off are missing the point. He's not using Rico as an excuse, and his words are a lot less offensive than thse who are now using Rico against him and to judge him. Maybe he is just seeing what can happen in the sport, can see that this could happen to him, and has lost his bottle. If so, so what? It happened to Shawn Moran. Some people maybe aren't cut out for it. I'm certainly not. I couldn't do it. So I don't. Maybe he just feels the same way. I always try to judge people as people, not just as how they are in their job. I feel the same here. I just don't get the same delight in people's failures as some do I guess. Plus, it's possible he never mentioned Rico before because he knew exactly how some people would judge that.