INCOGNITO

Will Pawlicki be up to riding today after his many falls and damage to bikes yesterday

Should be an interesting meeting this one. Either Coventry get going or Wolves keep on stacking up the points. If the main four at Coventry go well they should be able to win here but are Wolves coming to repeat their early season performance that started them in the climb up to the top of the table or was that just a short burst of form against teams struggling. After four wins Wolves couldn't find heat winners at Poole and Bech hasn't started well and Clegg struggling to beat any one so far. Is Garrity starting to get things going and which Kasprzak will turn up which can be the same for King. Coventry should be better this time but it could be another away win here but not by much

Lining the pockets has been the biggest reason this format came in but under the name of being cost effective for clubs. Top grade riders having harder rides would no longer be scoring 10 plus on £200 a point while reserves would be scoring 8 or 10 instead of 4 or 5 at £50+ a point. Trouble is that it messes up averages and a five point rider will now average more than a GP register due to the rides they face. This wasn't liked by the big guns so now they have allowed reserves to move up and possibly the likes of Holder or Kasprzak or Zagar moving to the eeasier rides and getting more money. Next season they must switch to grading riders and get rid of the averages otherwise riders over scoring what they should be will find themselves unable to find a team. Now they are letting from May 1st teams sign extra heat leaders as long as they are still under the points limit. So a team that has heat leaders starting badly could sign new heat leaders at the expense of an over achieving second string. Scrap the format and restrictions on team lay out and get some creditability back to the new fans trying to understand why a rider scoring 5 is in the GP's and not the reserve scoring 10 plus.

It's going to be hard to improve the line up as the weakest part of the team is at reserve and not starting with Garrity or Someone like Howarth attached reserve will cost them all season. How can you improve on Bates and Sarjeant now is the problem and sadly the one that will have to pay the price of the mistake will most likely be Woryna who can be replaced by a 6 point rider like Michelsen

Jacob averaged around 8 points as a second string so as a reserve he would average around 11. More chance of Bech or Masters dropping to reserve once the rain allows them to ride enough home meetings with the forecasts and Mondays taken up by Cradley on the alternative weeks. Wolves pulled off a great win at Coventry and would be expected to win here too

Leicester only have strength at reserve and even when Auty moves up, possibly as a heat leader, they will have Nicolai Klindt move down which with Starke will be a strong pairing still. They lack any fire power and Coventry should have been more comfortable than they were in gaining all three points here and at Leicester. Bomber and Kasprzak were expected to score big here and having King back them up made sure of the win but the rest are hit and miss. Coventry will have tougher matches than this during the season and they will need the others to step up for the times King may not.

I am not reading through all the comments on here but I am shocked that some people just don't listen or want to believe it wasn't the fault of the Belle Vue management. Rideable - Yes Bomber said rideable but he was saying he and everyone wouldn't want to see riders just following each other just to get it running. Bomber and the Entire line up agreed that the track was not fit for racing as the base was not solid and putting a roller over it was not going to fix it as it would rip up each time. The only way this can be fixed is to rip it all up and lay a new base and that should take weeks not minutes as it should be left to sit for three months after being laid and worked on regular in that time. If the base is repairable then it could be days or more but there was never going to be racing on that track when it was laid just 9 days prior and not allowed to settle and form a hard base. The surface is ok but it contains too much little stone chippings and not enough clay mixed in to help it bond . It will be interesting to see if the Aces v Wolves match goes ahead on Friday but if there is any concern they should call it now as another cancellation on the night would be unforgivable and could damage the club's and sport too much to recover. The comments of Maybe we were a week to early or it wasn't down to us but the riders has shown the Belle Vue management up and if this is investigated I could see serious fines or warnings handed out to the club. I wait to see if Friday will be on but speaking and hearing from respected people in the sport it was always going to be difficult to run and to get this fixed could see Belle Vue starting in April at the earliest.

How much is this post absolutely the opposite way around. track not ready Stadium not ready Not got the balls to call this off days ago meanwhile Poole keep going on winning !! I can't see it being on after witnessing this fiasco. Track needs to be done by a proper track team like Doc Bridget or Glyn Taylor The track was not ready Name the riders who didn't want to put their necks on the line to save the biggest idiot up in speedway .... read the programme and you can read the list (Inc Bomber who fair play came out to speak but only when it was said that it was not there fault but the riders don't want to ride. Then he came out to say Don't blame us for this mess) Utter shambles and there are lots of things that I noticed that needs work doing at the stadium and one big point is the safety of the riders in the pits and the fans on the bends.

I will make a prediction based on the few practice laps seen at Belle Vue last night It is a full throttle track very nice and wide but if the leading rider doesn't make a mistake it is hard to see how the others can find a different line. Could this be a gaters pparadise ?

Chris Harris came to the mike and while he said you can't blame the management he also made it clear that the track on the third and fourth bends were unrideable and said they have been trying to sort it over the last week or so. Chris Norton had earlier said it way three or four weeks ago they started to know there was a problem there. Norton had said it's nothing they could do about it and it was the riders that didn't want to ride. This is why I think Bomber cane out and while trying to defend the management he also made it clear that the track was not ready to race on. Forget anything to do with the weather this is more bad track work and materials. It was not wet or frozen but simply not bonding and acting like a sand pit which is obviously not safe to race on. From the shale that got sprayed into the crowd it contained quite a bit of little stones and looked like it could have done with more clay base like the materials used at Wolverhampton and Edinburgh .... multi winning tracks of the year done brilliantly by Doc Bridget. Belle Vue have always had poor track surfaces and I would like to see Doc come down and give his assessment of the work done by Colin Meredith and the track crew. No excuses or blame on the riders just needs to be laid correctly and Glyn Taylor is another who could give his opinion.

Drabik is the next World U21 Champion from Poland. Great talent and will learn from Tai and Magic.

Well I am not Suprised by a few things from this result like Castagna 0 and Sarjeant struggling as a second string. Ipswich are going to rely too much on the top four scoring big points and by that I mean 38+ as the other three will do well to get 8 between them. Scunthorpe look to have a much more balanced line up and having Wilkinson at reserve was the match winner here and Davies scoring well. Will they be able to repeat this elsewhere or was the key factor Ipswich were battling with just 5 riders and making Scunthorpe look better than they are. I can Think of a few young Brits looking for team places and think Ipswich will have to look again at the balance of the team and who isn't ready for the position in the team .

It would only happen if it is world wide and I can't see it happening. I can see a set of rules on engines possibly coming in eventually but to get all leagues to agree would be hard to achieve especially if that includes FIM meetings as well. The retired Oliver Allen and Daniel King were but try convincing riders that ride abroad more and won't want different equipment in other leagues.

So who is going Sunday ?

The forward planning should have been a drastic change and instead of drawing up a list of 36 possible heat leaders they should have drawn up a list of which riders actually wanted to ride here. With Darcy Ward sadly lost to the sport and a clear indication that the likes of Neils K Iversen were not going to be back it left a 40.5 limit hard to achieve and virtually impossible when you are restricted to 3 heat leaders from the list without some even below a six average. In the end less than 20 from the list were willing to return so teams were going to start with one heat leader while some will have 3 and a rider much better than some on the list and with a higher average. The 2016 season should have been a new look for the Elite League with either a fixed race night or a squad system for heat leaders so some could return for half the meetings or made it possible for teams to have a regular team with no doubling up riders apart from the fast track riders.

If you think he or any rider gets paid more here than in Sweden or Poland you obviously don't realise why so many are riding there and not here. A rider can make enough money in one Polish meeting as he would in four meetings here and earning four or more times the amount in one meeting means Britain is the country they are more likely to ditch. Fixed race nights also help !!

When you have a team that has 4 heat leaders in Holder, Watt, Andersen and Buczkowski and a second string that is the Australian Champion with two exceptional reserves it is hard to see any other team winning the title. However reaching the play offs is the target and the rest of the teams have weak areas and most teams will make changes that can change things around. Wolves have built a team of experience and potential that has yet to develop fully in Bech and Thorssell and it is hard to judge exactly how they will do. The key could be having a top reserve in Howarth or later on possibly Thorssell or Masters. This is going to be a good part for the season but only if the others can do their job or improve especially away from Monmore Green. Belle Vue are tipped by many to be a strong line up so it will be interesting to see how they get on in the first two meetings of the season.

5 heat leaders so can't do it. Spend as much as you like but if I had 30 million I would like to help the entire sport and build up the leagues for 2017 but until then I would like a team of Piotr Pawlicki 7.32 Emil Sayfutdinov 8.00 Bartosz Zmarzlik 7.00 Robert Lambert 6.78 Nicolai Klindt 3.68 Kyle Howarth 5.53 Ashley Morris 3.00

Maybe Zengota has a false average due to second string races before he moved up but he was still scoring well in all the leagues he rode in regardless of the racing number. Saturdays however do not fit in for him as he is a crucial member of his Polish team and rides in other countries. Shame as he would be a good signing for any team

Barru Hearn is taking more of a back seat these days and letting his son take over but he doesn't go into things unless he has control and that is a problem with team sports that are run by owners as snooker and darts are individuals competing.

It will be interesting to see how the fixtures work together if there are rain offs as many Wolves fans won't want to or be able to go on any other night than a Monday and fitting in these could be to much lower crowds. There are a few weeks of consecutive matches in the fixtures so at times Cradley won't have a home match for 3 weeks and if rained off this could be a month. Think this would have been better if they could have held the Cradley fixtures on a Sunday and Monday just for Wolves and on alternative weeks. Poland are starting their league in April it looks like so the Bank Holiday Monday may be other meetings there ?

All clubs would have one fixture each week so they would all finish at the same week. Wolves v Leicester and Swindon v Lakeside on the Monday then Poole v Coventry and Kings Lynn v Belle Vue on the Wednesday for example for one week. British Speedway needs Sky because of the money as it keeps most clubs afloat and unless they changed their mind there would have to be one fixture each week on a Monday so riders would have 3 or 4 consecutive nights about 5 times a season. British Speedway doesn't need a set night to continue but if they want a better product and hope to see the big names appear here they would have to have a set night and to make the Elite League creditable and stop clashes of fixtures for riders doubling up

The set nights for the Elite League is being talked about but the riders, promoters and stadium landlords have different ideas on which nights so it will need working out which way British Speedway wants to go. The riders like Woffinden or Pedersen or Iversen etc want just ONE set race night and that would have to be Wednesday or Thursday. However Wednesday would appear best as a number of Premier League tracks use Thursday nights. However SKY want Mondays and the sport need that money and more if they are looking at bringing back the big names for about 14 fixtures. SKY may be tempted with Wednesday but that would clash with Champions League football which is mainly BT SPORTS during the months it overlaps. Riders don't want to rush from GP to Poland to Britain and to Sweden in four consecutive days but under a squad system this may be able to be used. However British Speedway appears to be looking at TWO set nights of Monday for half the fixtures and Wednesday for the other half if clubs only operate one meeting a week. Mondays don't clash with anyone and Sky want that night so it seems likely it will be Mondays but depending on which way they go and who they want back would make a second night either required or not at all.

Gollob has signed for Wroclaw alongside Woffinden and Janowski who also won't be riding here like Jedrzejak and Pavlic too. Wolves are starting with a number one with a 6.80 average in Kylmakorpi and it's likley he won't be the lowest number one in the Elite League thanks to Leicester and the look who's left seven

Masters should miss any clashes with any scheduled Edinburgh matches and so should Max Clegg as like Lewis Blackbird last year the Premier League team got priority plus Max could miss meetings if there is a clash with Cradley fixtures. Howarth being a Workington asset also could miss meetings and with A and B fixtures that could be six Fridays for Edinburgh and more for Workington so away it could be about 4 away meetings with all three present at worst. Freddie can't be as bad as last season surely and Bech should be better than his average suggests but I can't help think they would have been better off with Wells and someone like Leon Madsen or had they have acted quicker Krzysztof Buczkowski who will be a match winner at Poole as a second string and better at tracks like Poole Swindon Coventry Kings Lynn and Leicester plus the new much bigger Belle Vue track. Poole Swindon Kings Lynn and Belle Vue look much stronger and even Lakeside are starting to look solid and Coventry are not going to be easy. So at present it looks like another 7th place team to me at the moment.