CB252

I thought they'd go close I must admit, and when they chucked away the first couple of away meetings a few eyebrows were raised. Watt's meltdown and some below par scores from riders in the top 5 have forced riders into the wrong positions in the team which has made them look poorly balanced, particularly tonight.

Holder himself shoots that theory to rubbish, as he hasn't mastered it and he's been World Champion. Also, Hans Nielsen hated it and he is the second greatest rider of all time. Been to Lakeside dozens of times, and been to dozens of meetings all over the country already this year, and I just hate the track. Give me a Peterborough or a Sheffield any day. Respect the opinion of people who enjoy it though. I can honestly say that, if I become a nomadic fan after the Bees demise, Arena probably won't be on my list to visit.

To be fair Steve the track has been on the wane for a couple of years but it can be a great race track. Just get Buster over there with the blade, fix the base and re lay it. Holder isn't going to want to ride round here every week and blow his world title hopes.

Andersen was certainly out of his comfort zone there.

One thing for sure, with a team of smooth track tarts apart from Bucky, Poole will need to sort this track out quickly.

Track has more waves than the sea. Was dreadful when Coventry were there a few weeks ago. There is obviously a serious issue with the track base which needs urgent remedial action before someone gets hurt.

No chance. Called it correctly before the start. Bomber is nearly always pony there. Sarj is woeful there too, Woryna was never going to score, Lanham needs to retire. Would have had KK and Kings scores the other way round. Garrity being there might have got us to a genuine 35 without a tactical.

I wanted Hamill to win it. I didn't lose sleep over it though so no need for the usual angry response.

Daft debate this one. I nearly cried when Havvy won the world title in 92 as I hated him and Bradford. I wanted Tommy Knudsen to win it as he had been a Coventry rider for 14 seasons and he was my idol! People who take a holier than thou stance on this are usually people who support teams that have the Brits in them, but claim that they'd still support the British rider if they were riding for a rival team. Yeah right. When Loram won it I wanted Hamill to win it as Hamill was a Bee, and I was going off Poole already at that point!

He's angling for a PL berth like Davey. It's going well so far. No, because it was at Leicester. If they were any good they'd be able to score at least 40 elsewhere, which they can't.

Yep me too. Called the result spot on minus the tactical. Hey Ho, won't need to come next year so will probably do the B fixture as well as a farewell to my least favourite track. Good cafe though. So are Lakeside on oval speedway tracks.

Ha ha I still enjoyed it. I had a moan and a laugh with my friends about the track shape like I have done for the last ten years, even when we've won there. Was the telly any good?

Nobody will get points at Lakeside. Having been there tonight I've got to say I agree with Chris Holder. That place flies in the face of eveything a speedway track should be. Off to Peterborough tomorrow to cleanse my eyes with some proper speedway. He was expecting a speedway track I think! Looked close to tears in the pits the poor lad.

They don't increase the attendance significantly. Certainly not if you end up running midweek. Your price would have to go up to 25 quid minimum to pay for them. People would quickly find something new to grumble about.

No, and when you ask them a genuine question as to what they want and how they propose to increase the quality whilst decreasing the cost, they disappear into thin air and don't respond!

I don't get what people want. It's like they want the Promoter to completely bank roll a high quality Ekstraliga style affair. Not going to happen. They could try and get a league sponsor which may help, but the Promotors have still got to pay the Stadium rent before they start breaking even. A few years ago at Leicester it was 15/16 quid for PL. Well last night at Brandon it was 17 and you've got to try and pay for Kasprzak, Jonsson and Harris out of the extra quid, not to mention PL Heat Leaders like King, Garrity, Lawson, Kerr in lower order positions. People who think the quality is still not far off in both Leagues are delusional. Look at Leicester. Hougaard, Watt and Wozniak would eat the PL for breakfast, and then you've got Auty and Starke down at reserve who are PL 1-5 riders. So even the weakest EL team would destroy a PL team.

How would you improve it without increasing the price?

What do you propose? How can we fix it? We could try all 8 teams running on one midweek night and try and bring some stars back, but your admission fee will shoot up to £25 quid, at least, to pay for them and there will be a quarter of the crowd there if it's not at the weekend. Or we de-tune to PL level and have a North-South split and run on better race nights and try and lower and standardise admission fees across the board? Unlikely that you'd get the price below 15/16 quid though as the first few quid at most UK tracks gets eaten up by Stadium rent. There's no easy answer to the mess that British Speedway finds itself in and it's easy to look at the Polish and Swedish model at present, but they aren't totally blighted by stadium issues like we are over here.

Not sure what people want? Would you like Mick to pop out and do your shopping while you watch the meeting? Maybe your dry cleaning? What constitutes value for money? There was the main meeting followed by a full 9 heat second half. Is the cinema or ten pin bowling worth 13 quid? Is premiership football worth 60-80 quid? What do you want? As for the crowd, it was probably one of the better crowds I've seen anywhere in the country to date this season. And I've been to a lot of meetings already. Slightly worrying maybe, but I've seen way worse attendances.

Exactly. We've all seen club officials tuck into poor refereeing decisions. Just find it bizarre that he went on to publicly single out King and call into question his current form. Not sure what value it added to his rant? Hardly Kings fault if the referee makes a few bad decisions.

Did people miss the bit where Campbell states that King is not the rider he used to be? Pretty personal and unnecessary in my opinion particularly when he's still better than 99% of other riders in the PL.

Wow, pretty unprofessional, scathing personal attack on Danny King from this Campbell bloke.

Presume Bates misses both due to U21s? Probably makes us a touch stronger if Woryna takes to a reserve berth.

Fair play to RTD for making me eat my early season words. Good meeting tonight, regardless of score, and superbly run. Full second half as well. Shame more can't be tempted for a measly 12 quid.

Did you support this team before you became a Leicester fan? http://www.speedwayresearcher.org.uk/bellend.html