Grachan

My guess is 16.

Pearson and Tatum may be a bit "shouty" but they are good at what they do. The style may not appeal to some people, but for a taste of Eurosport's (presumably) own input you only have to listen to the guy doing the voice overs in the parts where previously Sky would have goner to the studion. Well meaning but very amateurish. Sounds like someone from a club DVD. Tom Woffinden? Imagine the uproar on here if one of the other two had said that?

It's nothing new. They did in in Los Angeles for the 1982 World Final. My parents went and they got moved before the start to where the cameras would pick up the crowd.

They didn't have guests in the 60s. When Barry Briggs got injured doing the outrageous thing of riding on the continent in 1967, Swindon had to use their number 8 in his place. And they still won the league. I think the pool of riders for a number one who is injured would be ok. If none are available then use R/R. If any other member of the top 3 is out then use R/R. (Sorry if this goes a bit "in my day blah blah blah"). Anyone else injured then use a number 8 or a junior. Either scrap double uppers or have 2 for each position. The guests thing is getting out of hand now. Teams are using guests already and the season only just started. When will the people realise that all they do every year is introduce things that annoy a few more people and thus make them give up on the sport while, at the same time, do nothing to attract new people in their place?

True. But if you're going to have them, then have 2 sharing instead of one who is missing half the time. If that's not forcing guests upon the sport I don't know what is.

Which is why only having one double upper in each position is a crap idea.

Yup.

Me too - plus when I got the front page once as Reading closed in on the league championship. I only ever did one "proper" interview, which was with Jeremy Doncaster for the World Final edition. Most of my quotes came from Tim Sugar or - in one case - Todd Wiltshire's dad. Other than that I relied upon what riders said over the PA and the tape recorder in my pocket!

It's true that the inclusion of Mondays results worked well for Speedway Mail, with Wolves and Reading riding on that night. I used to write the Reading articles in the early 90s. I would knock them out on a Tuesday morning on one of those old white Amstrad word processor things with the boot up disk and dot matrix printer. Then I'd fax it off to the magazine before going to work. Having Mondays even gave me a scoop over Speedway Star, even though I had no connection with Reading speedway and just started doing the articles for the fun of it because they was no regular Reading article in the magazine. I was told on the Monday that Mitch Shirra has signed for The Racers, so made that my story. When Speedway Star came out there wasn't even a hint of this happening. Reckon I should have got an "Exclusive" headline for that!

Man of the meeting and most exciting rider was always quite interesting.

Absolutely. There is a scoreboard at Swindon but it tells you sod all you need to know to keep up with what is going on. I guess the idea is to try and make profit based on selling programmes, but if ther sport was easier to follow without filling one in, I'm sure you'd get larger crowds.

It hasn't been announced on the BSPA site though, if you read it. It says "SWINDON have announced a deal has been completed with Troy Batchelor", which, though similar, isn't quite the same as saying he's definitely in the side. Silly buggers all round if you ask me - which nobody did.

Andrew silver looks more like Billy Duffy from the cult.

Living in Britain doesn't automatically make you a British Citizen.

Thought I'd post it here rather than on the other thread so it would hang around a bit longer. Perhaps we could even have a sticky for it as people often come looking and asking about it. This just popped up randomly in my recommendations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fKZn5KzpiY

If you zoom the map out, you can see the runway at Greenham Common to the West. That is what Tsunami was referring to. I worked at AWRE (as it was then called) for many years and live in Newbury, so know the area well. They used to have trials riding along there too. With Greenham and AWE so close, perhaps we could see a return of "The Bombers"!! Would they dare?

Not any more. It's been reverted to common ground now for several years.

Yes. Greenham Common (the old US air base) to the West. AWE Aldermaston to the East.

They could even possibly get away with calling them Reading Racers? It's only about 10 miles out of Reading after all.

Do they? Which rule? Hope you're right.

Leave ittttttttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!

Gotta feel sorry for Poole in all this. Now that it's Peterborough that nobody likes everyone has forgotten about the poor old Pirates.

Great number ones: Phil Crump Martin Ashby Leigh Adams Swindon Legend: Bob Kilby Greatest Entertainers: Shawn McConnell Andrew Silver That's 6 that pick themselves for me. Picking the 7th is not so easy. Briggo? A total legend but before my time so it would be cheating to say him. Autrey is always more associated with Exeter for me. Jason Crump was just one season, but a major signing as it concided with dropping dow to the second tier. Very much in tune with Sidney with these. So difficult to pick a seventh - one more rider that stands out above the others that remain from my own personal experiences. Jimmy Nilsen perhaps? Yes. I'll go with Jimmy as my 7th rider but might change my mind later. Or Brian Leonard, because he used to have a shop near me, his ex-wife is my mum's cleaner and he bought my book.

Really? I don't remember that. He certainly was going some. I remember him doing a lap of honour with a big grin on his facew and getting booed mercilessly though.

I remember Finn Thomsen getting 21 from 8 rides at Swindon that year. Four programmed rides, 3 R/R rides and a tactical substitute. A reserve could have possibly had 9 rides? Three programmed, 2 reserve replacements, 1 tactical substitute and 3 R/R? I'm not sure on that, but I think a reserve could have had that.