Fourentee

Thanks, Wembley certainly strikes a chord. Not sure about Briggs.

This is a vague memory from many years ago, but do I recall a PR stunt involving a rider going round a garage forecourt to promote indoor speedway? Ian Thomas involvement? I'm sure someone can help out here.

No search for first-person insights into riding with or against world champions in this wonderful sport can ever be thus described. The quest continues!

Pretty radical from Dame Vera considering the rationing at the time.

robert72, this post appears to cast doubt on the prospects of you responding to my repeated, politely phrased requests for details on the world champions you lined up against. I trust you are in a position to respond and confound the assorted doubters and nay sayers on the forum.

Fair play to Tai, you never saw him at Monmore with a ridiculous Mohawk. Eh, Steve? Steve?

Somewhat surprisingly, yes. I did think he might have blocked my account, thus not seeing the question posed, but then he'd surely see my posts when you quote them. Unless, of course, you too are blocked... Perhaps someone else could help out and draw his attention to what, after all, was a genuine inquiry politely phrased. I have by no means given up on this one.

OK, fine, thanks. Yes.

I retain full confidence in robert72, in so far as this matter is concerned. He has responded to jibes and abuse so will surely spare a few moments to share his insights in response to a genuine question asked politely and in good faith.

Really, in what way?

Some years ago I interviewed Billy Hamill after one underwhelming away performance, expressed sympathy at his lack of points and gently inquired if there was a technical explanation, receiving the prompt reply: "I rode like a d***head."

Of course. That's the freedom of the forum. But if someone had started a thread and said in the first post something along the lines of: 'The form of Harris is a bit of a worry with the SWC coming up. Should he perhaps be looking at X, Y and Z to improve matters' and made some constructive criticisms, this would probably be a 10-page thread with some positive contributions. As it is, it appears to have been launched simply to have a pop at the rider. Speaking as someone who watches Wolves when the chance arises, and thus partially through gritted teeth, it's never a hardship to see him in action. A standard Harris EL season is seven to eight points and a stack of memories. Wish we had more like him.

It's fair to say that we don't often find ourselves on the same side of a discussion. But I'm genuinely interested, which is why I posed the question in the first place. I phrased it politely and I remain confident that robert72 will respond in kind. He likes to encourage debate (we are on page 112 after all) and appears to post with sufficient frequency to suggest that constraints on his time would not be an issue.

A touch disappointing, to be honest, particularly given such an active poster. It's always interesting when current or former riders give us the benefit of their insight; The Dean Machine, to take just one example at random, is invariably interesting on riding topics (I much admire the comment he made on the current Harris thread) and David Howe, though not a frequent poster, was always worth reading. But there we are, I live in hope.

And the one before that. And the one before that...

Well, I'm a bit of a sucker for 'do you remember when?' threads from a fan perspective and it would be interesting to hear it from the saddle, so to speak. robert72 is a frequent poster so I would hope he could share the relevant insights.

Apologies for repeating a post, particularly one of my own, but it may have been missed in the general run of things. Just wondering if robert72 could take a couple of minutes to respond to this.

That's an interesting aside. Which world champions did you race against, at what level of competition, and what were the results?

And then again maybe, just maybe they won't. Just a hunch.

Is this not a contradiction in terms?

I can understand your embarrassment at making a decision not to attend a match on the unsupported, inexpert advice of one poster. What I don't comprehend is why you show yourself up by pinning the blame on him/her when the logical thing to do is check.

Don't disagree with any of that. Perhaps it would have helped if I'd stressed in the first post that it's the general principle of people coming on and shouting ban that irks me. I prefer the mods to sort it out. Your 'with that freedom comes responsibility' remark seems, to me, to echo Clive James' point about freedom of speech coming with responsibilities: "Yet there are many freedoms which a civilised country must restrict if it is to stay civilised, the classic example being the freedom to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre."

I haven't said anything different. But as a general principle, not just in this instance, I'm not wild about posters coming on shouting for a ban.

Yep, bit of a guilty pleasure!

Gavan, whatever the provocation, should certainly not have responded as he did. Can't say I'm wild about the posters who came on here acting like footballers making card gestures to the referee, mind. Attack the post, report it should you feel it necessary and move on.