IainB

At last! It's only taken 23 years but at last some technical insight from the comms team. I didn't think I'd ever find myself typing the words... Well done Eurosport!

That's purely the reason i have not gone. If it had been on BSN I would as you can't beat live Speedway, but the pace of a Eurosport meeting is just not fun

He should be on the case then!

He's just there to make sure the rules are adhered to, if the rules are poorly written or don't exist what can he do? Is there a rule that says if you sign a rider he has to ride in all home and away meetings?

So if that's true, that's the deal Alex Brady agreed to? A complete disregard for Wolves, Ipswich & Leicester fans. This is why the sport needs an independent body, no truly independent body would have sanctioned that deal. If they don't want to compete in league Speedway, perhaps they should join the IoW and do what they do and not waste the rest of our time

So it's the riders now who decide which meetings are "important"?

what is it?

The options are: 1. say he's withholding his services = 28 day ban 2. say he's "unavailable" = junior replacement 3. say he's dropped = team re-declaration 4. say he's injured = guest and revert to "normal" for the next match 5. pay him his fee and ride him at Wolves The option that is best for Buster is clearly option 4, the option that is best for the sport and the fans is option 5. But without option 4 there is not likely to be a King's Lynn speedway next season

They probably don't notice or aren't interested, although the BSPL probably think they are... like I said when the TV deal was signed, I think they probably deserve each other

I know it, you know it, all Speedway fans know it... there are still some TV, the "media" and sponsors who still need to portray a sport with integrity for their own business and marketing purposes, so we have to go through this charade

or C he's "injured"

Is he though? Or has he been told he's not required for this meeting? It's academic anyway as he's clearly injured

would he not get a ban for withholding his services?

I would have thought if they told the truth, they wouldn't be granted a facility and you'd have a junior at number 1... which is no good to anybody. I'll grant you that they've probably tied themselves up in rules of their own making

That's something that has been lost since the final years of BSI/IMG and despite DSE's "new era" doesn't appear to be on the agenda anytime soon, just rinse and repeat every year

not so sure about the Wolves/Redcar wildcard idea... but I definitely think the series is in need of a shake up

Can't argue with a lot of what you say... in a one off world final you had jeopardy, something which seems to be sadly missing now. Trick won a lot of his world titles off of gate 1 as another poster had said but in his first he had to go through the quali route and win the last ever 1 off final and in many of his others was under the two duff rides and you're on your way home knock out system. Where's the jeopardy these days? Be mediocre throughout the night, squeeze into a semi on 7 points, qualify for a final with a 2nd walk home with 20 points in the bag!

He would maybe take 1 or 2 rides to sus the place out and then he'd be awesome... the guy is class. Like you I would love to see it though.

yes 4 this year... marginally better than it was but it will only feature 3 of the current of the GP crop, Vaculik, Doyle & Holder... Lambert, Nilsson & Fricke failed to qualify, you could question whether the other 9, Bartek excepted, are really (and I mean really, really!) that interested in becoming World Champion. They may tell you they are but they're not really displaying the hunger that World Champions need. If they want to make a nice living milking the golden Polish t1t, that's great, don't waste everybody else's time by going through the motions in the GP every week. I'd rather watch 16 riders wanting to win something than 6 or 7 wanting to win with the rest going through the motions

When was the last time he "qualified" for a GP? In fact has he ever done the qualifying rounds?

Er... qualification

World Championship speedway should not be about who can get around a Polish track though. I'd call 3 qualifying spots pretty much a closed shop

That's what I was getting at with Holder & Bewley... it was debatable when they were given their places in the GP that they were up to that standard... but being in the GP series has made them genuine world class riders. How many more could that apply to? We'll never know because it's a closed shop

I don't think it helps that we've only really seen him ride here as a Birmingham reserve for a couple of meetings, so there's still a big question mark around how he'd get on around our "special" tracks... he'd be awesome of course but we've never really seen a World Champion give Britain a complete swerve

He is... his occasional grumpiness is quite endearing