IainB

You definitely can't say fag these days

Just done £12.50 e/w on Vaculik at 11/1 returning £200... watch him get injured now

Yes, I get that... maybe they've not heard of the expression of pointski's in the the pitski's

He's definitely up there isn't he. Tommy spent most of his career riding in semi-professional leagues though, both Leigh and Emil in professional leagues. For me it's: 1. Leigh Adams 2. Emil Sayfutdinov 3. Tommy Knudsen Although Emil is in danger of becoming No 1 very soon

Oh OK, fair enough. Still the lack of team riding in Poland is noticeable by its absence

Pointless having them really then unless like this country when running ZZ

I'm new to full time Polish Speedway this year and what has surprised me so much is that for a Sport that is so geared up to team work in Poland with the way they run it, with all the club staff, the team colours, the team merchandise, the team socials, the team practice etc. that all of that team work appears to be left at the pit gate in the majority of cases. Admittedly I only see what is fed to me on the TV coverage but I can't really see any team spirit in any of the teams with everybody concentrating on doing their own thing. Maybe that's what the riders have been told to do, maybe I have got it wrong. Are the riders under so much pressure to perform they've got to concentrate on themselves. Who knows, maybe Kolodziej asked to be taken out but if not I don't think he would have been taken out in any other league in the world. I thought similar in other matches where the scoreline has not been in doubt that why aren't they giving their No 8's a ride

I'm never really a fan of "seeding" or "wild cards" and generally prefer riders to earn places on merit. As the prize on the end of this is such a potentially big one I don't see why any of the genuine contenders (Adam, Worrals, Wright, Cook etc) maybe couldn't have done a cut down mini race off either at Leicester, Scunny or Somerset or at the recent Youth meeting for the GP Challenge spot

... Back to the rest of the GP Series... Surely if Emil doesn't win it this year he must be in danger of challenging Leigh Adams of becoming the best rider to never win an Individual World Championship?

You never see a poor bookie

Not so sure about Laguta, bit of a start tart... Having said that there's no "trick" tracks this year so I think going on current Polish form could be a wise move

Can you remember where you saw those odds? I quite fancy an e/w punt at that price

see you next Tuesday

See you next Tuesday

You're wasting your time chris4gillian

What an interesting listen the Martin Dugard podcast was (as they all are). You listen to most interviews and the interviewee normally finishes off with the cliche of "If I had to do it all over again I wouldn't change a thing"... Not on this one, sadly it sounds as if Martin has many regrets and would almost certainly do everything different. If I could offer one bit of constructive criticism it would be to maybe ask your audience of possible topics to cover. Obviously I don't know how much preparation time you have before an interview but if the listeners had some forewarning we could maybe suggest some topics. There were two memorable stand out moments in Martin's career for me and that was his British GP win and the Stefan Anderson "incident" and the latter wasn't covered... maybe he didn't want to talk about it, I don't know. Anyway, an excellent listen and keep up the good work.

How times change... we can't say "Tobacco" today apparently. So now the T word is to be erased from history

looks like the Confederate Flag (non) issue has already been discussed ad nauseam on this thread to be fair the Battle of Sedgemoor does get a few mentions but only as peoples assumptions on why the nickname Rebels was used for Somerset and it's connection with the confederate flag.

I suppose Somerset didn't have the history that Reading did at the time of the change. Do you know when the statement you quoted was issued? You could say that they were quite forward thinking and ahead of their time

Yes it does clear it up for me thanks for posting (and I genuinely mean that). I had done some searching and was unable to turn anything up... I stand corrected on the "Rebels" nickname but I'm still not sure why the confederate flag was used originally, maybe because it was familiar to Speedway fans after White City and Oxford? Even Debbie Hancock says people were asking what the confederate flag has to do with Somerset... and she doesn't give an answer either in the statement you quote.

You silly old Najjer, I can accept that maybe just maybe the name "Rebels" was used for the reason Grachan states but then why use the confederate flag as the club emblem? I fail to see the correlation between the Confederate flag as used in the American Civil war, some 3,000 miles away as the club emblem and the club name of the Rebels to commemorate the Battle of Sedgemoor in Somerset. Perhaps you can enlighten me so I can stop making myself look so silly As far as I can tell, this is what should have been on the clubs race jacket

OK not perspex then... perspex like (I'm no chemist), the year is 2020 and there's many different materials that could be used, just something to absorb the shock, think of a large cushion tray on its side. Don't get bogged down thinking about the fact I said perspex and think of a different material

If you look at the air fences there is still a major design flaw with them and has been from day one and that is they tend to lift up and the rider and bike goes underneath them if they go in low. I have always thought that they should have some kind of perspex screen in front of them to help absorb some of the initial impact and maybe stop riders from going under. I also think this would help with air bags down the straights as handlebars and foot rests wouldn't dig in, although it would change the racing lines at many tracks. In short the air bags should be used as a shock absorber and not catch fencing as it is at the moment. As a matter of interest... do you (or anybody) know who does the commentary and analysis on the Polish TV? I know Cegelski does some... just wondered who the other "experts" were... and if they're any good?

I wonder if many British riders have offered their services?

No the flag on top of the car is to commemorate the battle of Sedgemoor in Somerset, when the rebels defeated General Lee, coincidentally the name of a general also fighting in the american civil war... everybody knows that