bigcatdiary

I think the biggest problem is providing a track that promotes and encourages racing, several racing lines and enough grip to enable riders to actually race and overtake others. Most tracks either cannot be bothered or haven’t got the skill to do the job, poorly prepared tracks that are not properly watered and offer no grip or different lines and just provide tracks that are effectively a gating exercise with little or little chance of passing or entertainment. Local tracks to me Kings Lynn and Northampton are classic examples and Ipswich isn’t much better but offers much better viewing and at least free seats to all. If the spectacle is exciting and entertaining it will attract supporters, if it isn’t and just provides boring processional gate and go with smelly toilets and lots of tractor racing it morphs into just another Kings Lynn and nobody bothers to go.

I think the biggest problem is providing a track that promotes and encourages racing, several racing lines and enough grip to enable riders to actually race and overtake others. Most tracks either cannot be bothered or haven’t got the skill to do the job, poorly prepared tracks that are not properly watered and offer no grip or different lines and just provide tracks that are effectively a gating exercise with little or little chance of passing or entertainment. Local tracks to me Kings Lynn and Northampton are classic examples and Ipswich isn’t much better but offers much better viewing and at least free seats to all. If the spectacle is exciting and entertaining it will attract supporters, if it isn’t and just provides boring processional gate and go with smelly toilets and lots of tractor racing it morphs into just another Kings Lynn and nobody bothers to go.

BSN was complete and utter pants for me last night, freezing and cutting out regularly during the whole presentation, I lost it finally just as the riders were selecting gates for the final, I never got it back. The track looked lovely and smooth but provided nothing in the way of racing with riders strung out and little if any passing after a start which gave the yellow gate a ridiculous advantage that trackstaff were unable to rectify. Northampton as a racing circuit is dreadful that’s four meetings I have watched this year and the racing has been poor all year. The only plus last night was a good crowd for Tai, the fans however deserved better.

And their in lies the problem, one of the commentators made me laugh late on when he said one of the riders was moving out into the deep stuff to try and make a pass, what deep stuff, it was as slick as it could be, even Doyle said it was really smooth, all you had to do was make a start. A complete and utter pants of a meeting.

Interesting that the Danish Grand Prix went ahead despite the rain (20 heats)

Oh dear. I went to the very first opening match and it was known they had practiced in the afternoon, the match afterwards in front of a crowd that must have been at least 3 thousand was effectively ruined, the racing was gate and go with little if any overtaking other that first bend and mistakes. Its clear from reading this thread today that a junior meeting took place in the afternoon proves that the idiots in charge are just not learning from earlier mistakes, using sub standard track material or don’t have the expertise to lay a track that provides proper racing, clearly the rain didn’t help but weather forecasts exist these days and should be taken into account. I haven't been to Northampton since but we are looking to attending the Woffinden Testimonial in October, it will be interesting to see if anything has changed, from what I have read this year I fear not much, we will see.

Referee is shown as Craig Ackroyd who to be fair has always comes across as consistent and fair, however he had an trainee with him last night Josh Night, no idea who made the final decision but as I said Craig’s probably one of better refs.

I think the best thing Northampton could do is sort out the track, if it could be prepared for some half decent racing, that would help significantly to attract supporters on a regular basis.

Which begs the question did either of them at least try.

Nothing stopping Doyle and Fricke going through the qualifiers

The main problem is the owner, he has his own ideas on what he wants to pay riders and he doesn’t compromise, that coupled with the fact he regularly falls out with riders, staff and supporters, makes it difficult and not just in putting teams together. It makes it very hard to achieve anything and frustrates his staff and fans, I never really understood why he ever went into the Premier League, he had a lot of success at Championship level but trying to run Premier League on a Championship budget is always going to be difficult with any success strictly limited.

28k

It was indeed but the BSPA fine was over turned following an appeal to the acu

More down to a significant amount of cash from Torun than anything else.

Rob Lyon is an excellent team manager as he showed whilst at Peterborough, the problems at Lynn stem from the very top and nothing will change whilst he is in charge.