IainB

Was he "Flash"?

https://shop.gbspeedwayteam.com/

The question is, what is the NDL for? Is it to develop riders as the name suggests or is it to allow clubs that want to, to run at an affordable level? It should/could be both... it is clearly not a development league though as the higher leagues don't allow for that to happen

I have followed speedway for over 40 years and 20% back in the day from 2nd half's and the odd junior meeting may have been acceptable but from a league that has been designed and setup to develop new riding talent 20% to even just make it to an average level is a total disaster. You can't run a successful NDL without team spots being available in the higher leagues for those riders to progress into. And all these team spots are being taken by riders doubling down.

I've added to my original post I think since you replied... your 50% is actually nearer to 20% look at the riders lost to the sport! Those that went on to make any kind of career out of the sport: Kyle Howarth Jason Garrity* Steve Worrall Paul Starke Stefan Nielsen Tom Perry Ashley Morris Adam Roynon Lewis Kerr Todd Kurtz I've not done a deep analysis, just looked at who was riding in the 1st match of the season for each NDL home team. But as a DEVELOPMENT league that return is a disaster!

form is temporary, class is permanent, well perhaps that's not the correct phrase to use in this situation , but the Josh's were injured at the time of being dropped, these types of rider are the life blood of the sport in this country. Just look at the riders competing in the NDL 10 years ago and look at where they are now. Most of them are lost to the sport, where they should be solid 2nd strings in the sport instead we're relying on doubling up riders. Byron Bekker Scott Richardson Karl Mason Adam Mckinna Chris Widman Jack Hargreaves Mark Baseby Lewis Blackbird Ben Taylor Rob Branford Adam Allott Ryan Blacklock John MacPhail Barrie Evans Richard Franklin Darryl Ritchings Luke Chessell David Mason Ben Hopwood Marc Owen Brandon Freemantle Shane Hazelden Rob Smith Lee Smethills Brendan Johnson Tom Hill John Resch Darren Mallett Oliver Rayson Adam Lowe James Cockle Tom Stokes James Brundle Aaron Baseby Joe Jacobs Daniel Halsey Danny Stoneman Jay Herne Tom Young Jamie-White Williams Matt Bates David Gough Richard Andrews Paul Cooper Adam Wrathall Greg Blair Ashley Birks Oliver Greenwood Jaimie Pickard Gareth Isherwood Tim Webster Ben Reade National DEVELOPMENT League

Yes... was replaced with an Australian wasn't he? Doubling up countries

I'm 100% in the same situation as you, except I live in Leicester. I went to the Redcar re-opening match and the Leicester match, both times the track was unacceptably dusty, I may have gone along to this to support the sport in the city had the basics been done in either of these matches, as the basics weren't done, I'm sorry to say I shall stay at home and watch a movie.

Even in sports awash with money cost caps have been introduced, Messi has just left Barca, because of this, there's financial fair play in football, F1 has a cost cap (except for driver contracts) and have limitations on parts that can be used. I know in a lot of cases some of these aren't perfect and some people will say "ah but so and so did this and so and so did that"... but Speedway has nothing at all in place to try and control costs, the best thing they could introduce in recent years was the bond for when a poorly club inevitably goes bust. For me cost caps and running through a BSPL umbrella, with the best will in the world, ain't going to work. What has seemed to work fairly well in F1 (whether you agree with sporting penalties (grid penalties) or not) is the restriction on the parts that can be used. I was watching Talking Dirt the other day and AshTech is working with Mercedes F1 on a new part for a Speedway bike, won't make any difference to the racing yet when it's been developed ALL riders are going to need one. Technological advancement is part of the appeal of F1, for Speedway it shouldn't even be in the equation. I can't see how not running on a Saturday night in the Summer in favour of postponing the meeting to possibly a money losing double header in the Autumn helps the club... it very much looks like the writing is on the wall. Will they also be fining Eastbourne for what happened at Leicester on Saturday night if they do survive? It seems like the BSPL have stepped in too late, what happened on Saturday night should never have been allowed to happen. Maybe the BSPL should be running the club in the meantime on regular race nights, using their pay scales until the situation can be resolved, just postponing the matches helps nobody if there is a serious chance of the club being saved. I do worry that the Play-Off system, especially in the lower leagues, where it is not demanded by TV, has a detrimental effect on the financial viability of the sport. All for what? A bumper crowd at the end of the season for the successful clubs while the unsuccessful ones have shut up shop with 6 weeks of the season left. Clubs making changes left, right and centre mid season in a scramble to make the play offs for a possible season extension. In a traditional league campaign, you make your team at the beginning of the year according to your budget and you see where you finish at the end of the year with that budget, only replacing riders due to injury. When is the transfer deadline? I was once told on here that if you want to know how much a rider gets paid, ask them and if you want to know a clubs attendance, ask the turnstile operator. The trouble is the riders jobs aren't disappearing, not the top riders anyway, it's the lesser riders that are forced out, the journeymen that the sport relies on, even this season what's happened to Josh Auty, Josh Bates, Ty Proctor, Paul Hurry and probably others I can't think of right now.

Had he been on the Jean Alesi juice??!!??

There were very different circumstances last year, so it's understandable that riders that had based themselves in a different country could be "excused", but travel is a lot easier this year as many riders have shown so to not invite Roofless Robert Lambert based on the fact he couldn't do it last year is a bit harsh. Having said that do any other riders miss their national championship pre or post covid? I know there were issues with the Aussies riding in their championship a few years back.

Some people you just can't reach lol

I get easily confused with all the club names...I don't really know who I'm watching half the time

The model of paying out more than you're bringing in never works in any walk of life

Dave Goddard tweeted 40 mins ago it's on PS2

If you strip all the cr@p away... it's still cricket. It may be the sacrifice you have to make to watch 4 riders race each other on dirt tracks riding 500cc motorbikes without brakes at a professional level... assuming anybody has the gumption to do anything with the sport... which is highly unlikely.

Fortunately I waited until there was a 20% sitewide promotion on so managed to pick it up for around £30. Seems like a decent shirt too. And don't knock Fruit of The Loom, I'm still wearing some FOTL boxer shorts that I picked up in the states around 15 years ago lol.

The trouble with all that though is you're wrong... look at the crowds The 100 has been attracting compare to even that of the British Final.

But how much of what a rider earns goes straight out of the sport to engine tuners etc. All of these Formula Ford riders are trying to maintain Formula 1 kit and the whole sport in this country suffers for it in more ways than one.

This is bizarre we've all congregated on the Eastbourne thread having exactly the same discussions we've had on many other threads... It's like we're all in the hospital waiting room awaiting news on the patient!

It's a tough one, there will be some supporters like me who just won't be attracted by NDL level Speedway. I'm fortunate in that I live centrally so have the pick of quite a few tracks to attend, but I've never been to a Leicester Cubs match, it has absolutely no appeal to me what so ever, much like when I used to follow the Bees, the Storm had no appeal. If Leicester were to run just NDL only I would not attend. If I lived in a different part of the country I would be looking to attend my nearest "professional" club but probably on a less frequent basis. When the Storm tried to continue at Leicester it was pretty much a disaster

The trouble with "promoting" using social media is that, in the most part, you only reach those that you have already reached. Without purchasing some kind of advertisement package, so that you pop up as an advert via an algorithm to a similar sport or interest, you ain't going to attract many new visitors.

Could win it for the Tigers if he came good though... he can be a quality rider

Neither is Emil or Magic... But I think Bartek and Artem are making them look a bit ordinary at the moment