Anyway, we were never going to prosper in Heats 13 and 15, against the best rider in the PREMIERSHIP! And the sixth best ... Plus the latest wonder boy who was given seven rides ...
Nonsense. There was no need whatsoever to make changes; there was no chance at all that Scunthorpe would win. Douglas was brilliant - he scored half of Scunny's points single handed - but the rest were very ordinary.
As for James Pearson: he seemed to be using a Gerhardt engine, which was too slow, even though he was making the starts.
The black parts are probably made from magnesium, instead of aluminium, to save weight. we had an engine which had not only the cam cover and timing cover in magnesium, but also the main timing case. Whe we bought it, we did not appreciate that the engine was actually an Ashtech job!
It might be worth pointing out that the same thing - meetings held up by lack of medical support - seems to have happened at Scunthorpe and Newcastle recently.
At a practice session in the early days, Hemsley told me that he wanted a 'fast' speedway; this is why he made it with long straights. Of course, he really should have found out what a fast speedway is actually like!
As for riders, wasn't there talk last year of removing visa rules for Commonwealth citizens? If they did that, there would be a source of, at least, more Australian riders.