IainB

What a brilliant afternoon's Speedway! Competed by riders who actually wanted to be there and won by a rider who it clearly means something to. Pickering has been absolutely immense these last couple of months. The riders that pulled out at the last minute should be ashamed of themselves but they'll still expect us to support their testimonial meetings and buy their books. There must be something going on as it can't be coincidence that they all accept the booking, are advertised as riding and then on the eve of the meeting pull out, leaving the organisers just hours to sort a replacement out, so I presume there's some kind of rule that they must accept and can only pull out at a certain time? I don't know. Refreshing to hear these riders at least called out if not completely named and shamed by Swales and Parr and credit to BSN for not just glossing over it. I really don't want to pee on his parade, but... did Josh Pickering leave the track after the first start of the semi final, it looked for all the world as though he was about to but then the camera cut away from him. Didn't somebody get excluded at Glasgow the other week for doing that?

Surely a reserve should have taken Masters place in the semi... never seen a rider promoted to a final before who hasn't qualified but we seem to do what we want these days

100% a 20 minute delay between the end of heat 20 and the semi final (as usual) as you're building towards the end of a meeting is completely ludicrous!

Surely that would effect his eye lids

As a matter of interest how many meetings does BZ compete in during a season?

It'll be fun listening to BSN try to talk this one up like they were yesterday when they were trying to kid us that Worky could beat Poole when they hadn't all season long even with a full team!

They can't even spell Marshal correctly, the graphics have been all over the place during qualifying... when they can be bothered to show them and Cardiff? The hokey cokey GP 🕺. Imagine if that had been for a title... or medal... or top 6 So we wait a couple of minutes to decide who is world champion while the rocket scientists sort it out? Sport is all about the moment... it'd be like Ice Dancing when they're all waiting around for the results!

The thing is, it's this kind of attitude from riders that make promoters reluctant to put anything other than (contrived) team matches on. Belle Vue have proven that if you pay the right money to riders (which is what I suspect the sudden outbreak of this new virus within the speedway rider community is all about) that they can be run successfully with the PCMT now being the biggest meeting in the UK on the domestic calendar.

Where's the Weasel when you need him

Yes, no arguments from me about the winner and I quite like the 2 semis and a final. It's just the scoring is too complicated for the layman. To be fair last night was one of the easier scenarios but still way too complicated, you shouldn't have to sit there with a chart saying, well if he scores 2 points in this then he gets 18 points but if the other guy gets 3 points then he gets 20 points and there's only 20 points available in the next GP if he scores 7, 8 or 9 points next time out that could score him 8-20 points, but not guaranteed to... it's utter madness! And then there's the factoring in of who gets what points for finishing 3rd and 4th in the semis... that's the nightmare scenario when it comes down to deciding meaningful positions. In 2022 nobody knew Magic was 3rd in the world until after the race and the captions came up... and they're not always the most reliable of things to base the placings on. I don't really mind too much what the scoring system is, all the riders know the rules at the start of the season but it must be easy to understand for the punter... I want to sit there on my sofa chowing down on Doritos with a glass of Jack in my hand and be able to understand what the hell is going on not trying to work out some unfathomable Sudoku puzzle

It's not all about winning GP's though as Bartosz has proven, it's about beating the riders around you, with the inclusion of the likes of Huckenbeck, Kvech & the exclusion of Laguta and Sayfutdinov it's easier to pick up points, so when you currently scrape into the semis on 7, 8 or 9 points and then go on to make the final with the higher quality rider you don't make those semis let alone finals. As I keep on saying BZ is clearly the best rider of his generation but he certainly ain't the GoAT that some like to think.

The only way the current scoring system works is if you have all 16 riders in one 95 lap race, which could be interesting with pitstops etc, or you go back to the A, B, C & D Finals. It can never work with the 2 semis and a final system as has been proven by the utter chaos every year since it's inception where the only 2 people on the planet who knows what's going on are @racers and royalsand @Fromafar's 4 year old child genius grandson ... and we'll have to go through all this again in a couple of weeks to decide the final medal positions and the top 6 qualifiers for next year.

Well, I'm glad that somebody knew what was going on... can you fix him up with a BSF account for next year?

They could get to a final with as little as 9 race points and walk away with 20! Crazy!! Current system also means a rider can coast through a GP and just turn it on at the end. We've gone from the most ruthless knock out system, which personally was my favourite, to cumulative points, which was probably fairer and still allowed for a bad ride here and there to this current system which makes no sense for a heat system with semis and a final

Cumulative race points... simples, everybody knows what's going on at all times. I know what you're going to say the winning GP rider may not get the most points, that never really bothered me in the grand scheme of things. But for those that it does just award 21 race points for winning a GP and race points for everybody else. Bottom line is it MUST be understandable to the general viewing public

Can't remember any genuine World title contenders not being allowed to ride in World Finals

Perhaps gifted was a bit OTT but it was certainly heavily weighted in his favour and I said he can only beat what was is put in front of him and surely you can't argue that he's not up against the 15 best riders in the world... or even 14, 13 or 12...

F1 doesn't have 2 semis and a final, you know exactly where you are and what is required, there were just too many permutations going into the semis again and it'll be the same while this scoring system continues

The scoring system needs to be fan/viewer friendly first and foremost. You shouldn't have to need to have a laptop in front of you to know what the hell is going on.

Would much rather watch riders that wanted to be there than some of these big time Charlie's that think they're bigger than the sport. You'd expect better from some of them, just remember when it comes round to testimonial and farewell meetings though.

Well done to Rob & Bartek... but Zmarzlik is undoubtedly a class rider and easily the best of his generation, he could afford to miss Vojens last year and use Cardiff as a test session this year and still win with a round to spare. He was basically gifted the 2020 world title has had his 2 major rivals removed from the series and further still won this year's with the weakest line up for quite some time. I think there's quite a bit in what others have said about the money available in Poland devaluing the SGP series. You can only beat what's put in front of you though, so fair play to him.

Could only ride triangular shaped tracks... like Eastbourne

His bank manager (and wife ) will

I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows, there's thousands in attendance that don't know, nobody at WBD seems to know, even Einstein with a super computer wouldn't know... every year we have to go through this fiasco of not knowing who needs to do what with this ridiculous scoring system!

No