marko

Speedwaycrazy this is Lakeside we are talking about so whilst we can all have the intrigue, be prepared for an anti climax, its what the club does all too often.

Jon seems very confident in the speedway star and is trying to sell us on the idea we should not fear anyone, I'm not buying it though. I am curious who this mystery rider is they have as a plan should we get through though.

Says on the Hammers site plans are in place to negate the weather during the day, whether that is covers of some sort or simply they will pack the track I don't know, this sort of weather is unpredictable, a storm could spring from out of nowhere and monsoon the track or heavy rain could fall within a couple of miles missing the track and leaving it unscathed.

I doubt that is an option, the stadium is used most weekends for four wheeled motorsports, drifting and other events, speedway is just a fraction of what goes on their.

Wooden spoon you are 100% correct, Aces should pick the team they feel gives them the best chance of making the final, I think that they will be secretly hoping Lakeside make it then pick them off in the semi finals, Nicholls helping Hammers to get there and getting in some vital practice ahead of the semi final, however Swindon won't be wanting to go off that particular script and Lakeside will have to beat the weather before they worry about beating Swindon, either way I doubt even if it goes ahead the track will be how it normally is which will be advantage Swindon.

Swindon will be embarrassed in the play offs? Not anywhere near as much if Lakeside make it.

No point, the deadline for the semi final qualification is Friday, if rain intervenes the table as it stands will be used.

I would think should Fridays meeting not go ahead then Swindon would get the last play off place by default, its not the Robins fault that Lakeside have not raced all their home fixtures by that date, we have had umpteen weeks during the season with no speedway to fit all the meetings in and we have only had two rain offs during that time, the last of those being in June, a month where we only raced at home once on the 1st and we didn't race again until the 1st of the following month. Another interesting stat is both rain offs were against Swindon so not exactly a good omen. However I think Swindon will get a point tonight rendering Friday as meaningless anyway.

I dont know about Belle Vue tonight but i would suggest that tonights result will have a massive impact on what sort of gate Lakeside get on Friday, if it turns out to be a play off decider then i would expect it to be the biggest crowd of the season, conversely if Robins get a point tonight, Friday could be one of the worst although being the last meeting of the season people might turn up for one last hurrah so to speak.

Cheers it had completely slipped my memory they used to have a points handicap, maybe the points was too excessive but I think the idea was right because there should be some advantage for finishing higher up but I would do it as follows: first placed team vs 3/4th 3 point advantage over the 30 heats second placed team vs 3/4th 1 point advantage over 30 meaning a tie on agg before adjustment, second place team wins and for the final itself again the first placed team has 1 point advantage over 30 heats, that one point could be crucial but without weighting the tie to be too once sided.

A question for the stattos out there, how many years have we had play offs in the top flight? how many times has a team who has finished top of the league standings has subsequently not gone on to win the play offs? and finally how many times has a team that has finished third or fourth in the regular league gone on to at least make the play off final? (I suspect in the latter case its extremely few) And final final question, when was the last time we have witnessed a semi final 2nd leg where the tie was realistically still in the balance and not a case of going through the motions (for my memory its very rare for semi final to have any interest as a contest after the first leg)

This comes up every season and every season I say the same thing, the rules are the rules but there is nothing, NOTHING to say that the fans of any particular club can't club together and present their club with a custom made trophy honouring the achievement of finishing the season top of qualification process, thus far NOT one clubs set of fans have met this challenge, of course it won't be recognised by the bspa or scb as a legitimate title but like I say, if fans want to honour their side there is nothing to stop you, it's not that much different to those patrons who invest their own money into awarding rider of the month awards at various tracks, and you can do it now, you don't have to wait until the outcome of the play offs, if fact if you did wait it and lost the play offs it will look like sour grapes.

The way this is looking to go down i would be surprised if Sky do not show the Lakeside vs Swindon meeting live as a play off decider which would mean a change of date probably before the 16th.

No Lambert? Yeah this should be a very comfortable home win, just hope the Stars can gate to make it a little interesting, NKI should at least ensure some good action, he seems to love the place, his maximum for the Oxford Silver Machine back in 2006 I think it was still lives in my memory.

Was not there but a good result for Lakeside, funny though that it was Richard who had the worst night as normally he is mr consistent away from Arena and used to be a large track specialist.

I think it was poor form by the Stars to drop Rory knowing it was too late for him to get a place elsewhere, I would have like him at Lakeside, for who you ask? Probably Bridger

I am guessing Hammers will have R/R for Edward who should be riding for Rye House @Sheffield as will Ben Morley so a guest reserve needed for him also?

Poole for me regardless of individuals form are still the strongest team in the league imo but if there was an option for replacing a slightly off form rider for another asset that has been riding well elswhere you would be daft not to take advantage of that, I would have expected them to win at Leicester even with the injuries so its understandable Matt might want to take a step back and look at the situation.

Not just bad away but bad in particular at tracks such as Lynn, also with Rye House at Sheffield that night I guess we will have R/R for Edward which won't help.

its only our home track advantage which has saved us from being in another battle for bottom spot like in 2015

Lakeside to get a point..................in most heats, Wolves to hit the 60 mark.

I know it rained there a bit but they were lucky to get that meeting through, there was some big storms around yesterday evening but thankfully Lakeside avoided the worst of them, Met office said it wasn't going to rain, they got that well and truly wrong again.

Can't post a picture of the weather radar but the weather could yet save Bees blushes

I think Lakesides main focus is on wins and scraping into the play offs so they can get some extra TV money etc, Swindons four pointer last night would not have gone down well.

I didn't miss there not being a meeting, I also didn't miss the same old people complaining about how poor the racing is and asking why when the telly is in there is hardly anyone there to watch it