IainB

You think that's bad... just wait until the CL Summer Trophy is decided in early November

I think @lucifer sam has his head buried in the sand if he thinks everything in the garden is rosy. You only have to compare the crowds year on year to see the decline. There are the odd gems that keep me going though. Peterborough vs Sheffield on Monday evening was a classic match, good racing, tight score line and all done and dusted in 90 minutes with a 10-15 minutes interval. Unfortunately it was run in front of a dismal crowd. My other regular track at Leicester has produced some excellent racing this season, despite what some of the critics say... but they really need to speed up the running of meetings. 4 hours at the weekend for a double header of 30 minutes!

A great match last night, in front of a dismal crowd... where were all the part time Panthers glory hunters?

Got to say, some of the camera work was pretty shonky from Newcastle yesterday, maybe it was the wind!

Does he fancy riding for Newcastle?

It looks like nobody is going to be promoted from the Cubs to the Lions... I'm not even sure anymore what the point of the Cubs is other than a testing ground for the twins

drive up to the road works, park your car, walk to the other side, hitch hike to the showground and then do the same in reverse? It's a real ball ache, they used to wait until 10pm until they closed the country down for the night... now it seems it's 8pm!

Even the former sponsor of the Cubs team was leaving after heat 7 of the 2nd match!

You would have loved it at Leicester last night then... 40mins of tractor racing between the meetings and the usual amount of tractor racing during the meeting... 30 minutes racing packed into 240 minutes

Peter Craven Memorial at BV at the start of the year on a Monday night in March was a near sell out... So it can be done

This coming Saturday... mid summer's night, plum night in the Speedway calendar, weather likely to be fine, 2 matches on in Britain both at NDL level, Leicester & Berwick. Absolutely pathetic from all British Speedway so called promoters!

When you say injured, I take it you mean "injured", but they should be able to use Bradley Wilson Dean as a guest in the playoffs

very good Seriously though, I remember... Joe Owen, Ray Bales and Bob Garrard all turning out for Leicester, all prospects in their day at the time they rode for the Lions, so it's not a new thing

Of riders on their way "up" in the sport I'd say: Tom Brennan, Jack Thomas, Josh Pickering, Leon Flint, Drew Kemp, Ryan Douglas and Jordan Palin, although JP has be "rested" by the Panthers

Typed all of that out and didn't think to get your grammar correct 2 percentages, "rough and ready"

That's fair enough then I suppose Who's asset is he, do you know?

I seem to remember him putting us out of the Cup in our Championship winning season by winning heat 15 against Nicholls. I've just done a rough and ready analysis based on the 1-7's (sometimes 1-6) declared on clubs website's and there are 78.5% of PL riders doubling "down" to CL and 20% of NL riders doubling up to CL... quite frankly, that's ridiculous, in an ideal world there wouldn't be any doubling down, but we don't live in that world but those numbers should be a lot nearer 50% for NL riders in my opinion. In that 20% of NL riders doubling up are riders such as Dan & Joe Thompson and Alfie Bowtell who you would class as established CL riders, maybe there should be 1 space in an NL team available for a senior rider to act as a kind of mentor but no more than that. Cub Connor Coles has yet again been passed by for this afternoons match at Newcastle to ride in the reserve berth in favour of Jason Edwards, performance wise, probably makes sense if you want to maximise every points paying position in the team, for your own clubs rider development makes no sense at all. which unfortunately for you counts for nothing

Yes, did see that, fortunately i was stood away from the dust, so wasn't too bad for me, you probably got more of it in the pits .

Well... i gave it until heat 7 then had to go home due to tractor sickness. Much as I suspected, NDL is a terrible spectacle around BP and what the Thompson twins are still doing wasting their time in that league for I'll never know. Don't get me wrong, if that's your thing fair enough and I'm sure the kids are putting great effort in, but it needs to be run in its own right. Why we're being asked to subsidise it by having it forced on us as part of the senior team ticket I also don't know as when they've had the opportunity to promote from the cubs they've neglected to do so both times. Senior match was pretty good though, close scores, good racing but the track was a little too dusty. (Very dusty)

1st match took 2 hours on the bob. 40 mins track prep for the 2nd match and we're underway at 21:10... I've got to be out of the supermarket car park by 22:15, not a chance I'll see the end of this. They even gave a warning about the supermarket car park over the pa... oh the irony. Not sure if there's a 22:00 curfew anyway.

We are talking about the outfit that runs Eurosport don't forget

We're 1 heat down after half an hour, the tractors are currently out on the track... with a sun delay looming, this could run into tomorrow

He did say it was a "quess" which i guess is a guess

Just makes you wonder what the point of a Cubs team is? That we're being asked to support tonight. What is the point of the Cubs team?

Hmm... this year is Connor's 10th in the sport, so is probably due a testimonial, he's 28! I don't want to do the lad down but i don't think he's going to "make it". For me, Connor and riders like him should not be riding in NDL teams but should be riding in the main body of CL teams as a good club journeyman, instead CL teams prefer to use PL riders. Connor is not one for the future... he's one for now.