IainB

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

That's not quite right, R&R will be along in a minute to give you all a lesson

There's currently nobody in the series with the intensity to win a title except for Doyle, Lambert and Holder... everybody else seems delighted with 2nd!

It doesn't help that its all kisses and cuddles after the race too. Where's the anger? While he keeps getting reactions like that he's going to continue to do things like that

It's highly debatable whether Jack & Dan would have received wild cards based on their league form... the GP's have been the making of these 2, taking them onto the next level

It's a closed shop though isn't it? Jack & Dan would have to have finished top 3 in the GP challenge to qualify and that's almost a lottery

If we had them... we probably wouldn't have had Jack & Dan

If he's serious about winning, which up until the last GP, when he was clearly gutted to miss the final, I'm not sure he has been with having the likes of Paco and Ellis in his pit bay. He would probably benefit from having a former Champ in his corner, at times it seems he doesn't realise how good he is and can be.

I wonder if that's why he said he wants to come back to England... to ride for who I'm not sure?

"Start as sharp a a bowling ball", brilliant!

Must mean he's a 25-30% worse rider than everybody else

Tai's bikes at least 10-15% better than everybody else's FACT!

Dickson has gone down in my estimation because of this... I've been binned off by email in the past, like you say cowardly. Turns out the special one is not so special after all.