marko

I am sure when I was younger if a promoter wanted to call a meeting off, they had to get a local ref to come along and confirm the track was unridable at that point, not what it might be like in 2 hours time, 10 hours times or 1 days time. However, the riders are by no means the innocent party in all of this, they have conditioned promoters to call meetings off earlier than they would have previously because they (the promoter) knows if the track isn’t perfect, the riders will simply refuse to race and force a cancellation that way. And the riders have that attitude because the bikes now can only be ridden at full throttle and there is no leeway. Recently in the star they had a piece on the silencers affecting the bikes, we had it with the solid block tyres, we have recently had it with the Anlas tyres being rubbish, why is the sport constantly going backwards in terms of the bikes? They are making the sport more expensive, less safe and less of a spectacle. I can’t think of one single benefit the modern speedway bikes have brought to the sport.

Much less chance in May to August but if they really felt that way then why even bother to try and run at all, it’s all or nothing, you can’t be half pregnant.

Question, if rain offs cost that much, why bother attempting to run in March anyway? If no meetings were planned then there is zero chance of a rain off and zero chance of losing money! Speedway should be every week from May to August, no exceptions That’s 16 weeks plus right there, fools!

Rinse and repeat every season, its why I won’t bother with the BSN stuff anymore, not the fault of BSN but promoters constantly take the mick calling meetings off on a whim without making any real effort to get it on.

It’s not a British speedway thing, but an Oxford thing, if you have several teams your going to have instances where your regular riders for one of your A or B sides turn up to race for the other side to take points off you. Doubling up has been around for years just that this is the first time where riders will be riding for another club at the track where they normally race for the home team, it does look a bit silly to be honest.

This could catch out a lot of people out , not seen it advertised that you Must purchase tickets in advance, had I not seen this I would have turned up on Sunday looking to pay on the gate.

I don’t know if BSN get compensated but another reason there excellent coverage is tarnished is when promoters call meetings off when clearly they have made no effort to get the track in a race able condition. There are certain tracks where BSN go that I end up thinking, either it won’t be on, or the racing will be awful, through no fault of BSN or the riders.

I have no doubt about the production values that BSN offer, but I do have doubts about the product that the bspa come up with especially when it comes to teams ending up being filled with guests and missing riders for a whole host of reasons and seldom due to injury.

90 mins is fine, I would say that is the sort of perfect ball park, if it was newer an hour it would be too rushed and no time to breath especially after a great race. When it starts getting on for two hours though, it’s taking the P and tv meetings and some others non tv often end up being dragged out for the sake of it, no rush to get on with it whatsoever even if rain was forecasted. Lakeside used to have spells like that, made all the worse by one man insisting he had to drive both tractors so we had to wait twice as long in a far from sheltered stadium in the cold and wind.

When it’s needed no problem at all, but all too often it was coming out to grade a track that was a flat as a witches twit and hardly any dirt on it, what’s the point? Slick, slick, slick, dry and dusty and can’t water it because then it will go like ice, that’s all too often what we have now in this country bar a few tracks like Belle Vue, Redcar and Scunthorpe to name three.

First we had riders doubling up to cover a shortage of riders, now we have clubs doubling up to cover a shortage of teams, it just gets worse. I just can’t see how a club which has gone belly up before due to lack of crowds will be able to run both 1st and 2nd division teams.

I was surprised to read about Tigers already saying five riders won’t be back, the dust has barely settled on their title win so why bring the fans down by issuing this news so early? You have just won the league, let the fans enjoy it for a while.

Could clubs like Mildenhall afford to go into the CH? I wouldn’t want to lose any clubs but if there is only three or four clubs in the NL it won’t be tenable anyway.

I would scrap it and run a second half like they used too in the 80s, two teams of four riders, or three can be done and often was. And this was after a 16 heat main match in the National League days. If some people want to leave after the main match, no problem, it makes it easier to get out for those want don’t mind hanging around for a bit rather than a mass exodus as soon as heat 15 is completed. At Arena Essex plenty of the crowd had already gone once the riders came round on a lap of honour because they want to beat the rush and had no reason to hang on for a few minutes. Even in the 90s this was being used, remember the super Ipswich junior team they had, it was something like Ben Howe, Leigh Lanham, Sav Clouting & Lawrence Hare. Arena Essex had the likes of Robert Ledwith, Tommy Palmer, Shaun Nichols, Chris Young, Roland Pollard, Russel Etherington, and a few of them got outings in the main team over the years.

The cover on this weeks star sums it up, two riders holding league winners medals who were only guesting for one night, what about Jack Holder and Tobias Musielak who have been racing for the Tigers all season? Its just bonkers

I don’t think Poole choked, Glasgow were clearly the better side and had they had been able to field that team all season they would have finished top of the league no question. They finished with a top five that was ultra strong and pretty much had five heat leaders, Brennan and Vissing have and are potential 3rd heat leader quality at least.

I have seen countless team managers do that without any intention of drawing the meeting out to get a result, most of the time it’s done because they can and they don’t care if fans are left standing around for longer than needed. The only time it’s really unavoidable is running r/r at number two when your reserves will need to take the bulk of the rides, so will force one to have two on the trot prior to heat two.

And if you have a number eight, they can take all four r/r if the team manager desires it, no such thing as a compulsory r/r ride, never has been.

If Tom and Vadim took r/r rides, Lee could have taken the other two plus Ace’s forth. Why didn’t he? Maybe Lee told Cami he didn’t want the 7th ride or is there an agreement with Piper that he will always be given four rides minimum?

I take it BSN will still be covering this meeting despite a change of date?

Any track covers down? On the proviso that it was dry yesterday to be able to get them down on a dry track?

I really doubt he would have or at least like to think that, in those days of no doubling up or down, riders were much more aligned to one team and one team alone, bar Swedish league etc. Cradley fans would have excepted it but if they had subsequently lost you know where the blame would have been directed and likewise I imagine Wolves would not have been happy to see their star rider help their arch rivals and you don’t get bigger than Wolves & Cradley.

A guest rider is entitled to payment and praise for the points they score but nothing else, league winners medals should only go to the riders who are in that teams official one to seven regardless of whether they are fit to ride or on the injured list. If it was me, I would have felt embarrassed about getting a medal for one guest appearance, but maybe it shows just how much some of these modern riders really don’t care about which body colour they are wearing anymore. Can you imagine a scenario back in the day where Sam Ermolenko would guest for Cradley Heath in a play off final, help them win the league and then actively celebrate with them? I don’t think so.

100% talk about sticking two fingers up at your parent club who didn’t male the final partly down to that very rider.

Sorry to all my fans at my contracted club I have let down because we couldn’t make the play offs even though only three teams miss out, but here i am holding aloft the league title like I have raced for this club all season long. Have a bit of humility, you done the job you were paid to do but it’s about those who have represented the Tigers all season, not just a match or two.