The Cardiff Grand Prix Discussion Thread

[a61]

An absolutely controversial meeting, but I loved it. It made great watching and kept me on the edge of my seat, which was welcome after the hangover from Friday night. I have no voice left!

[Ashie]

I was also impressed with the way Harris, Nicholls and Kennett went, I was worrying all week they were going to be awful but they upped their game well and Eddie looked better as time went on.

 

 

Eeer, Kennett was useless, off the pace and so naive to let to keep a wide outside line and let two riders through in his final ride. Once is forgivable, but to stay there and let another rider through shows that at the moment he is not good enough. Makes you question the silly qualification we use for the wildcard.

 

Fair play to Nicholls though, he was superb last night, I have been critical of him for not being good enough in other GPs, but last night he proved he can be hard and determined enough. If he can do that for the rest of the GPs this season then he will have my support.

 

[Ashie]

I agree i think his tratment by the crowd was a disgrace,

 

Agreed.

 

They were totally clueless, it was embarrassing and pathetic. If NP was British they would have been blaming the ref and cheering the rider and calling it hard racing.

 

NP was at fault, but he should not have been booed for getting lucky, the ref was the one to blame, not NP.

[a61]

Oh grow up! Nicki thought the whole thing was funny - you could see that from his reaction after the Bjarne incident!

Completely agree. He loves it!

[MattK]

I don't care about the track, these are "supposed" to be the best rider in the World, they should be able to ride some ruts.

 

I thought last night was absolutely superb. If club speedway could have just 1/100th of the atmosphere of last night then local tracks would be packing them in week in week out. The presentation was spot on, the music was great (and loud, as it should be) and yes, there was plenty of drama, courtesy of Mr Pedersen, but as others have said, that's him job and the booing will be water off a duck's back to him.

[a61]

the music was great (and loud, as it should be)

Forgot to mention this! The music was brilliant... bring them back at Coventry

 

Edited to add: by "music" I mean the songs played throughout the meeting, and not Belinda Carlisle's feeble attempt at miming!

Edited June 29, 2008 by a61

[spook]

two things after reading through the reams of posts last night:

 

if what Nicki did to gain two exclusions is deemed to be not only acceptable but also an exclusion for the other rider then we will see more and more of the field doing it.......... race after race we will see budding drogba's and ronaldo's aiming at other riders and then sliding off their bikes........ maybe they will even chuck their hands into the air in that classic Platoon 'why?' pose like our favourite continental football players?.............................. and what happens when 2 or more go for this approach in the same turn? ............... does this now mean that gate 1 is actually the worst gate to be on now because you have to shut off to avoid being excluded? It will certainly mean that riders will start gaining injuries because of other guys being a liability

 

I believe Mr Pedersen and Mr Olsen are missing a point or two here.......... if any collusion should be happenening then it should be how to use his World Champion status to its fullest to promote GP speedway and speedway in general.................. NickiP's theatrics backed up by strong administerial support for him are making it a laughing stock

 

 

and was the track really that bad? yes it rutted early..................... but from what I saw the majority of the incidents involved guys who were ignoring the dodgy spots of the track............what NKI tried was ridiculous and was only going to end up in tears........... we all know what happens to temp tracks and this was not the worst we have seen by far .... it isnt even the worst Cardiff track we have seen

[superguest]

Another dangerous track which saw numerous falls. Just isnt fun watching speedway with so many crashes. These guys are human and are being pushed to their limit on these awful tracks.

 

Ref made loads of mistakes.

Bjarne and Adams shouldn't have been excluded - all 4 back would have been the right decision

Nicki should have been excluded for touching the tapes

Adams was right, the race with Greg was a dead heat

The semi final was a joke. AJ made two perfect starts.

 

Hope all the riders are ok, Nicki, Hans, Freddie, PUK, Rune and Bomber all hit the deck. Bomber looked really bad, hopefully he'll regain his good looks sooner rather than later

[speedy den boy]

Just wondered if anyone saw the object that came out of kniels bike in the race in heat 1.was it the silencer that fell off or something that his pit crew failed to take out before he lefted the pits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[teddybear]

Just wondered if anyone saw the object that came out of kniels bike in the race in heat 1.was it the silencer that fell off or something that his pit crew failed to take out before he lefted the pits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Air filter cover

[Ghostwalker]

The semi final was a joke. AJ made two perfect starts.

 

No he did not you could easily see that he made two chance starts and let go of the clutch too early for it to have been good starts as a result of good eaction time.

 

About Adams/Bj-Nicki incidents. If it would have been the other way around. If Nicki had been the inside rider and Adams or any of the British riders had been the one on the outside and the ref would have excluded them instead of Nicki. I'm pretty sure that many people in here would have posted complaints about the ref not excluding nicki.

[superguest]

I don't care about the track, these are "supposed" to be the best rider in the World, they should be able to ride some ruts.

 

I thought last night was absolutely superb. If club speedway could have just 1/100th of the atmosphere of last night then local tracks would be packing them in week in week out. The presentation was spot on, the music was great (and loud, as it should be) and yes, there was plenty of drama, courtesy of Mr Pedersen, but as others have said, that's him job and the booing will be water off a duck's back to him.

 

No they shouldnt have to ride on dangerous tracks.

 

Theres so many crashes which have coursed riders to then miss league meetings which affects the clubs. Since the Gothenburg GP we havent been able to use our top 2! Surely that is stopping people from coming out and packing the terraces?

 

As Nicki said, the next time it happens the riders will stick together and then what will Olsen do then? He won't beable to replace all 16 riders.

 

 

 

 

[spook]

ah dont believe the hype.............. Nicki scored 11 points (and that was 4 more than he should have had!) and has Crumpy breathing down his neck.......he had to blame something didnt he?........... if he thinks that he can whip up the support of the other GP riders then he is mistaken

 

the issue which is present and could spark a rider walkout is not this but it does still involve Nicki

[Sky Blue Bee]

NP didn't help his cause at all by waving and smirking to the crowd. It incensed them. If had had any sense at the time he woould have kept his head low but baited them by waving after getting through to the final, fully in the knowledge it was strirring them up.

 

The ref made the bad calls, not NP, buut the crowd see NP as the villian as he was the one to gain from the bad calls.

 

 

Reply spot on - also does himself no favours by going down far too easily and then lying there as if seriously injured awaiting for the decision to go for him.

[SpeedwayTShirts]

Hope no one minds but just started a thread specifically for feedback on the GP Presentation / Music. Need to get some comments back to IMG asap to help us secure future GP's with them. Hope you can spare us a sec to just give us your thoughts.

 

Thanks in anticipation

 

Bart

[lupus]

I agreee SBB...after one incident he sat up, saw something had broken on his bike and then lay there like a prima donna footballer! Pathetic!

[spin king]

Reply spot on - also does himself no favours by going down far too easily and then lying there as if seriously injured awaiting for the decision to go for him.

 

No favours he is the current World Champ, and still leads the Championship, after that I don't think that he cres what I, you or anyone else thinks, the man is purely ruthless and will do what he has to do to win the Championship, at what ever cost.

[spin king]

I agreee SBB...after one incident he sat up, saw something had broken on his bike and then lay there like a prima donna footballer! Pathetic!

 

Again that is how he wins Championships, that is why he is World Champion and leads the Championship Nicki know exactly how to play the game.

[Biggypop]

After all the anticipation what a let down!!

A night full of incident and controversy, but strangely thats not what really disgusted me.

Yes, the ref made ridiculous decisions robbing certain riders of any chance, and again the track wasnt conducive to really great racing .

Felt desperate for Adams and B Pedersen but..

I think I have finally had it with the neanderthal elements of the crowd, sure we all have our likes and dislikes amongst the riders but to see vast numbers cheering and bellowing because Nicki P came off is just disgusting. These same sheep seem to blame him for every single incident, booing with monotonous regularity.

I always thought Speedway fans a cut above football but no more, will still carry on going but it depresses me that these idiots are more prevalent every year.

[colincooke]

Well quite an incident packed show this one was eh folks.

As per usual the centre of attention is Nicki, Nicki, Nicki.

Don't get me wrong i'm not putting any blame on the guy cos he never made the decisions did he, it was that wozzy whatsisname bloke in the box.

The fact remains though that neither Leigh, or Bjarne later on moved off their line & we're ahead of Nicki so how we're they at fault.

Very disapointed with the enigma named Mr Tomasz Gollob, after Copenhagen we all thought he'd shed his tag on the temp tracks but it was back to his usual sulky self.

The same goes for Hans, what was he whinging about with the Semi gate selection, he had a good outside gate to choose & the muppet went for the crap gate 3.

Great to see Scott & Chris finally show something,just a shame about the final outcome, things would've been different for Chris if PUK hadn't wiped him out & bust his nose amongst other things

As for the final, Scotty, patience dear boy!Such a shame as a rostrum place at least would've been certain.

Jason was a worthy winner though & Greg was superb & looked a sure fire bet early on.Great comments from both of them.

Edited June 29, 2008 by colincooke