El Pairs

[Starman2006]

Oh dear, that is not good to hear, no overtaking for 15 heats, and your biggest crowd for years, I feel very sorry for the Ipswich fans, but if you ask me something is very wrong up their. And also perhaps this competition ought to be scraped. I honestly expected Scott and Danny to put up a really bold show on their home patch, but for whatever reason it didn't happen!

People talk about resurecting the Blue Riband at poole, well imo that will never happen, primerily down to riders scheduals, and this competition somewhat bears this out.

Everybody has said it at some point or another, something needs to be done with the fixtures in the EL, otherwise there will eventually be no EL, and if BSI have their way the GP series will end up being 15 rounds, then that will definately put the lid on British speedway!!

[NOBBY]

Is this meeting 2nite live on any website to watch ???

 

Thankfully NO.....NO Andersen, NO Karlsson, NO Adams, NO Stead, NO Woffinden, NO Lindgren....and NO way it should have been £20 admission and £4 for a glossy programme with a bl00dy lousy design race card in !!!! When will the BSPA realise that the most important part of a programme to most speedway fans is the race card. So why do they do one that has no space to write the replacement riders names in the main riders score chart. Do they actually think that all those riders who were originally due to appear will actually be there ???? Maybe it's just a small thing to some fans, but the race card is usually what you buy the programme for, and it could be done with a bit more thought and practicality in mind. The rest of the glossy prog is just the usual bumf about the riders, a few articles by such experts as Nigel Pearson et al and the usual pics so that it looks like £4 is a good price !!! The problem is it's the same at every BSPA organised meeting.

 

As for the racing.............borefest until about heat 18 !!!!

[25yearfan]

Not a good advert for speedway I'm afraid!

 

Very little passing, substandard line up and many riders looking like they were just going through the motions!

 

Some of the missing riders I'm sure would have poor excuses for missing the meeting although Belle Vue had little options so their poor pairing could be justified.

 

As for the Ipswich pairing - Tonights performance from Danny King shows why they have struggled all season cause hes not a genuine EL 2nd heatleader while Scotty done his usual big meeting no show.

 

I had been looking forward to this meeting since the start of the season and while it was nice to go out it wasn't good value and I don't think I'd go to another EL pairs after this one and the poor one at King's Lynn 3 years ago. I feel sorry for fans who travelled long distances to come!

 

Congrats to Coventry cause they were the hungriest and best pair on show all night!

[neil bv]

How come Haines can ride, yet Hougaard can't? They are riding in the same event tomorrow.

Maybe it was a present for Joe as it was his 19th birthday.. Probably more likely that Hougaard had done the practice at Dire House & wouldn't be released to ride in the EL pairs meeting & Joe didn't so he could represent both club & country. What a guy...

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

Maybe it was a present for Joe as it was his 19th birthday.. Probably more likely that Hougaard had done the practice at Dire House & wouldn't be released to ride in the EL pairs meeting & Joe didn't so he could represent both club & country. What a guy...

 

And let's remember Joe IS reigning GB Under 21 Champ - having beaten both Tai & Lewis in winning this year's title. He's had a torrid time since but is a proven big meeting rider so I wish him all the best at RH in tne WTCF later today (Sunday)..

[tocha]

Thankfully NO.....NO Andersen, NO Karlsson, NO Adams, NO Stead, NO Woffinden, NO Lindgren....and NO way it should have been £20 admission and £4 for a glossy programme with a bl00dy lousy design race card in !!!! When will the BSPA realise that the most important part of a programme to most speedway fans is the race card. So why do they do one that has no space to write the replacement riders names in the main riders score chart. Do they actually think that all those riders who were originally due to appear will actually be there ???? Maybe it's just a small thing to some fans, but the race card is usually what you buy the programme for, and it could be done with a bit more thought and practicality in mind. The rest of the glossy prog is just the usual bumf about the riders, a few articles by such experts as Nigel Pearson et al and the usual pics so that it looks like £4 is a good price !!! The problem is it's the same at every BSPA organised meeting.

 

As for the racing.............borefest until about heat 18 !!!!

 

I'm afraid you missed something Nobby. There was, also, no column in which to insert the total points scored by each team following the qualifying heats. In other words the programme was absolute crap. As they say: 'A monkey in a three-piece suit could have done better than that.'

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

I'm afraid you missed something Nobby. There was, also, no column in which to insert the total points scored by each team following the qualifying heats. In other words the programme was absolute crap. As they say: 'A monkey in a three-piece suit could have done better than that.'

 

I bet it listed the competing riders per heat in the order: red, blue, white, yellow: unlike the IoW-staged NL Pairs prog. last year which for reasons best known to its editor broke with that tradition!!!

[Trees]

As a witches fan, I was proud to see us host the meeting but if you were there tonight you would have seen a very different picture of British speedway with riders simply not interested. I counted 3 passes over the 21 heats.

Did you really expect more?????

[salty]

Maybe it was a present for Joe as it was his 19th birthday.. Probably more likely that Hougaard had done the practice at Dire House & wouldn't be released to ride in the EL pairs meeting & Joe didn't so he could represent both club & country. What a guy...

Not having a go at Joe in any way, but surely he would have practiced at Rye yesterday?

 

Surely it's time to consign the Elite Pairs to the bin, or at least don't schedule it at such a busy time of the season. I guess the fact it attracted a decent crowd means it will be persevered with.

[bigcatdiary]

Good crowd but dreadfully let down by

 

The racing or complete lack of it until the later heats.

 

The continued late withdrawal of riders that is seriously turning this event into a joke, only 4 teams out of 9 had there best pairing, whats worse is most of the clubs didnt tell there supporters that some of there riders wouldnt be appearing beforehand so only found out when attending the meeting.

 

The programme for these events continues to make no room for changes, this is very poor and needs to be addressed.

 

The Referee - every problem on the first corner met with an exclusion.

[Sir Jasper]

Good crowd but dreadfully let down by

 

The Referee - every problem on the first corner met with an exclusion.

 

Shame about the meeting and its a real let down for Ipswich, do the host tracks run the meeting and provide the off track "entertainment" as well or is that part down to the BSPA?

 

As for the 2nd point its now gone too far, yes there were people "taking dives" but I now feel ref's are now judging things too harshly, it now seems the in vogue thing is to try and find reason to exclude somebody for going down on the first corner, the ruling is now too ambigous perhaps its time to reintroduce the 30 yard rule in which a rider can only go straight and not cut across whe coming out of the gate.

 

What we want is for refs to look at the whole picture, be consistant with decision making, perhaps they should work to some finmd of formula ie whats caused the issues, did rider a cut across rider b, what happened to rider b etc. Then you add the sometimes nonsensical reasoning of Tatum on Sky, at times he beggars belief, its almost as if at times he forgot he was a rider.

[SuddenSam15]

Why not make this a early season meeting ... we do not need to wait for averages just let the clubs send who they want from the declared 3 heatleaders. Hold it on a neutral track like Sheffield in April. Might cure this withdrawals to a certain extent as the early season money is always welcome. Might even work as a season opener.

[Sir Jasper]

Good crowd but dreadfully let down by

 

The Referee - every problem on the first corner met with an exclusion.

 

Shame about the meeting and its a real let down for Ipswich, do the host tracks run the meeting and provide the off track "entertainment" as well or is that part down to the BSPA?

 

As for the 2nd point its now gone too far, yes there were people "taking dives" but I now feel ref's are now judging things too harshly, it now seems the in vogue thing is to try and find reason to exclude somebody for going down on the first corner, the ruling is now too ambigous perhaps its time to reintroduce the 30 yard rule in which a rider can only go straight and not cut across whe coming out of the gate.

 

What we want is for refs to look at the whole picture, be consistant with decision making, perhaps they should work to some finmd of formula ie whats caused the issues, did rider a cut across rider b, what happened to rider b etc. Then you add the sometimes nonsensical reasoning of Tatum on Sky, at times he beggars belief, its almost as if at times he forgot he was a rider.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

Not having a go at Joe in any way, but surely he would have practiced at Rye yesterday?

 

I'm certain he would've after all as he showed how would it have been any sort of problem (to anyone..) to practice at Rye House in the morning/early afternoon and get to Ipswich in the evening..?!!

 

Good luck to Joe and the others in the GB line-up (whatever it ends up being..) this afternoon.

which reminds me..: must leave now!!!!

[pirateandi]

The Referee - every problem on the first corner met with an exclusion.

 

All the pre season track work and still having trouble at the first bend !!!!

[bigandyg]

So not even double figures then, what a total disgrace, our two should have saved their fuel and time getting to the meeting as they were only ever going to get points off each other, at least vintage ace wont be getting fat on large portions of humble pie lol, there was a lot of debate earlier in the season as regards to james, he did have a couple of ardent fans on here who now strangly seem to have gone amiss, perhaps now they can see what the rest of us saw months ago? As for sitera well he was never going to be good enough as his coventry form showed, would have much preferred to have blooded a young english rider that would have at least probably gained from the experiance without the travel costs. Mauger/Sjosten, Collins/Morton, Wright/Sitera, how the mighty have fallen.

 

I actually think it is a disgrace that Belle Vue were represented by a rider who is COMPLETELY useless. Look, he can't score a point in a reserve race, what chance has he against top riders (well those who actually bothered turning up). He was hopeless at Coventry last season, absolutely amazed they took him back on this season, and even more amazed that when he was let go by the Bees the Aces took him on. Who in their right mind made that decision? If I was as useless at my job as he is, I'd try and find another profession.

[Alan_Jones]

Not having a go at Joe in any way, but surely he would have practiced at Rye yesterday?

He didn't. The only GB riders were Josh Auty, Kyle Newman in the No. 1 race jacket and, in the second hour session only, Kyle Hughes.

[Baldyman]

The Referee - every problem on the first corner met with an exclusion.

 

All the pre season track work and still having trouble at the first bend !!!!

no more first bend problems than any other track. I think there was 3 incidents in 21 races.

[Lovey]

As for the 2nd point its now gone too far, yes there were people "taking dives" but I now feel ref's are now judging things too harshly, it now seems the in vogue thing is to try and find reason to exclude somebody for going down on the first corner, the ruling is now too ambigous perhaps its time to reintroduce the 30 yard rule in which a rider can only go straight and not cut across whe coming out of the gate.

 

If I recall correctly, there never has been a ruling about the first bend or the run-in to the bend from the start.

 

The 30 yard marker was to indicate where a rider may still legally receive assistance to start his engine if it failed at the tapes - after that point any outside assistance would mean an exclusion. Quite an archaic rule given that the engines these days either go or not.

 

So, in theory, the referee can quite rightly exclude a rider at the first bend for being the prime cause of the stoppage.

[Lovey]

I actually think it is a disgrace that Belle Vue were represented by a rider who is COMPLETELY useless. Look, he can't score a point in a reserve race, what chance has he against top riders (well those who actually bothered turning up). He was hopeless at Coventry last season, absolutely amazed they took him back on this season, and even more amazed that when he was let go by the Bees the Aces took him on. Who in their right mind made that decision? If I was as useless at my job as he is, I'd try and find another profession.

 

It's a symptom of British speedway that the promoters would rather persevere with a useless foreigner than a useless Brit.

 

If the fans keep supporting them, then it will continue to happen.

 

Some simple rules to introduce would be:

 

- allow any british rider under 21 to remain at reserve all season, irrespective of their average

 

- never let a foreigh rider's average fall below the assessed average he starts with, eg. if he comes in on a 5.00 he stays at that until he exceeds it, and if his Green Sheet is below that then for team building and line-up purposes it stays at 5.00.