IainB

Pretty poor wasn't it. But then the whole site is tbh. Have you seen the "what the fans say" section? I was reading it yesterday, It's no wonder nobody goes anymore

We can be one step ahead of the Poles then, we need to keep British riders riding in the British leagues and not allowing them to drift away from the sport

If I were subbing my merchandise operation out and were a business man, I'd be putting it out to tender, there would be an SLA, targets to meet, a % of takings, a say on what was being produced to represent my company/franchise for starters

A sad loss... did more to "Promote" our sport than many track owners! Should be the next inductee into the Speedway Hall of Fame!

I was watching some old video yesterday and one of the meetings that popped up was the WU21 round from Poole in 2011 and after watching the GP from the night before it was unbelievable to see who was riding in this competition, some have obviously fallen by the wayside due to various reasons, but here are the competitors: Maciej Janowski GP Darcy Ward Retired Przemysław Pawlicki Ekstraliga Patryk Dudek Ex GP Dennis Andersson What happened to him? Michael Jepsen Jensen Ex GP Martin Vaculík GP Bartosz Zmarzlik World Champion Piotr Pawlicki, Jr. Ex GP Aleksandr Loktaev A fall away from the GP's Simon Gustafsson Retired Oskar Fajfer Is he still riding? Mikkel Michelsen European Champion, GP's next year Mikkel B. Jensen Retired Kacper Gomólski Polish League? Joe Haines Retired Vadim Tarasenko Polish League? Dino Kovačić Never heard of him Václav Milík, Jr. Polish League? Steven Worrall BV/Poole heat leader Paul Starke Kent/Ipswich 2nd string René Bach Retired Jerran Hart Retired Tobiasz Musielak Polish League Ashley Morris Birmingham 2nd string 2011 may have been a particularly good year, but even those riders that have now retired, for whatever reason, went on to have achieve great things and make a good career from Speedway. But look at where the British riders are compared to a lot of the others! Even looking beyond 2011 at the British riders: 2012: Kyle Newman, Tom Perry 2013: Joe Jacobs, Liam Carr, Kyle Howarth 2014: No rider 2015: Stefan Nielsen I think the best thing we can do to bring on our youth in this country is to protect the team places available much in the same way that the Poles do with their U21 & U24 protected team spots. It was always stated in the past that this couldn't be done because of European law, well that's proven to be a load of woo woo as not only are the Poles doing it they're also restricting rider's being able to trade in more than 2 leagues, how anti-european is that! If we don't protect team places all the great work being done by GB Speedway team will be to no avail as the riders will drift away from the sport or stagnate like they have done in the past.

I think the BSPL may be looking into withholding the riders' names that appear in the meeting. They are to enter stadiums in disguise before putting on a club race suit and will be instructed to not remove their helmet until the meeting is over and leaving the stadium in disguise. All riders will be given names like the old ITV show Gladiators... Riding at No 1 Jet, Riding at No 2 Wolf etc. etc. Doubling up sorted! If you look at videos of Speedway of days gone by, you'll see that back in the 70's a rider very rarely even acknowledged another rider after a race, maybe the odd wave... These days they're fawning over each other after a race, it's embarrassing, imagine that at a Football match after an opponent had scored a goal against you!!!

Like I said people will be patting themselves on the back, either way. Could the match have gone ahead if the track had been covered? Maybe not, but track covers saved the GP at the weekend and meanwhile it was perfect Speedway weather at Leicester. 3 different cases there and the track covered event went ahead. 1 point each and move on...

Good point, obscure but a good point none the less... I think you should be able to calculate it with an algorithm though, if you know the distance of the transponder to the front wheel and factor in the speed and length of the track, but I'm no mathematician lol How do they work anyway? Do you know?

That's what I thought too... that and the fact that they're timing all riders to the thousandth of a second. If it's not a transponder the timekeeper must be on speed!

Not based on what's sold

If you actually read it properly you'll see that he said he pays rent. That's all, didn't mention anything else Probably just like the guy that sells the burgers does.

How come there was a debate about the Zmarzlik Fricke finish? Don't the bikes have transponders on them? They were giving the race times for all riders down to a thousandth of a second

Leicester are not receiving anything for your purchases though

There's quite a few similarities between Speedway and Cricket when you look at it. They're both totally dependant on the weather and a lot of the participants play for more than one club (although not at the same time like doubling up) Blast, 100, Big Bash, IPL etc. And there's a packed domestic and international calendar.

Previously to what? Previously to them not sending anybody? I assume nothing happens now?

Lublin, Friday

The last day of the Cricket test match has been abandoned today... match ends in a draw and we all move on, no scratching around at the arse end of September trying to re-arrange the match... or even the last day of play.

This weekend we have had Peterborough, Ipswich, Redcar, Eastbourne & Leicester all called off based on a weather forecast. Yes there has been rain about, it's a very showery spell of weather we're going through at the moment... but it is August, there's still a lot of daylight, warm sunshine and a drying breeze. Clubs are not even attempting to stage these matches because they are potential loss generators. It's not really about whether a match could have gone ahead or not and I (and others) will criticise if they could and promotions will pat themselves on their back if they couldn't, but it creates fixture congestion for later in the season. There must be serious doubt on whether the KoC will be completed. Peterborough will have ridden 2 home meetings in the whole of July & August, Leicester has been silent on what should have been 2 of the most lucrative nights of the season and god knows what's going on at Eastbourne! If clubs can't or won't fulfil their fixtures then the match should be forfeited or the points shared with the match not being rescheduled like in the other weather effected sport, Cricket. If the riders are going to miss out on a meeting it might make them more positive about riding in less than perfect conditions. Some matches are going to be cancelled due to actual genuine rain and there will be nothing that can be done about that when a track is actually waterlogged but when you have Edinburgh fans sat in a Leicester hotel room looking out the windows at an evening perfect for Speedway and wondering if they'll get their money back on hotels booked for Birmingham on Wednesday it's far from an ideal state of affairs. Why isn't it a pre-requisite for clubs to have track covers much, in the way that they have to have air fences? Cost would be the obvious answer, well if it means that each club has to stage a meeting where the riders don't get paid to cover the costs then so be it... especially if the riders know that if a match is called off it won't be restaged, thus loss of earnings. Now we're looking at the possible abandonment of a national cup competition and as usual all of the major finals tucked away at the end of October on wet tracks, on off race nights, in front of reduced crowds.

Sunday 09:24: It's raining! There's no way the riders could ride in this, the promotion have played a blinder saving everybody a lot of trouble.

So as shouty bollocks was telling me to get my tickets for BV last night, I went to the website this morning to do just as such and they ain't even on sale yet!. Any ideas when they will be?

Should try and pay using Scottish notes... there's no way they'd take the money! It's a shame that Birmingham, Leicester or Edinburgh haven't acknowledged the Edinburgh fans. If it's now policy that league matches take precedence what's the incentive to go to a KoC match in the likelihood (with all these cancellations on forecasts) that the competition won't be completed!

Berntzon, is quite obviously out of his depth. I'm not suggesting that Zmarlik is a bad rider he's quite clearly a sublime rider... he's just got an unfair advantage that's all.

Does anybody know why Tragic Janowski was awarded 2nd place in the race when Fred got excluded for unfair/dangerous/dirty riding as he crossed the line in 3rd place and the race wasn't stopped.

Rude!

Well, I'm having a little chuckle to myself