Lakeside V Leicester 4 April

[bigcatdiary]

Just checked updates.

 

Texters saying Lakeside track is slick and shiny

 

Lol

Edited April 4, 2014 by bigcatdiary

[fish keeper]

Just checked updates.

 

Texters saying Lakeside track is slick and shiny

 

Lol

Lakeside track as always been a bit on the slick side from what I remember of it.

[SCB]

Before the defenders of Leicesters track pipe up, this has been poor tonight.

[Woz01]

Leicester did well considering the start they had.

[justathought]

At least, Leicester are as woeful as Birmingham

Knob

[TMW]

Good to see the Lions fighting for every point

[Dave Stummings]

Typical lakeside meeting with carol racing. Not sure why I bothered. Won't be going back in a hurry.

[marko]

Ok so a ten point win but not the most enjoyable of meetings to be honest, in fact i could not wait for it to end, track was poor, appeared to ride dry and slick, PK mentioned they could not get enough water into the track which puzzled me because it was not exactly a hot day so i wonder if there was a reason behind that, if there was something going on preventing work being carried out on the track it needs to stop, priority should always be to make sure the track is fit to provide a good standard of racing, mind you they did not even attempt to water it during the whole evening which makes me think it must have been because the track was too bare of shale so would have been dangerous to do so, either way its poor form, we pay enough to get in, we deserve to see and the riders deserve the chance to work their craft on a well prepared track, it clearly affected the home side more than the away as it always does so very much an own goal on lakesides part there, but none the less something that can be fixed for next time, certainly the week before the racing was in the main very good.

But thats just part of it because the meeting also had no tempo to it, the constant track grading (of the dust) did not damage the tempo, it completely destroyed it and coupled with the poor presentation did not help, everyone around me and i mean everyone is getting a bit fed up with it already, both men involved in that department are good blokes, real salt of the earth types who clearly love the sport and have been in and around it for many years but what we have simply is not working, its having an adverse effect on the entire show because people cant hear properly what is being said or end up zoning out because it decends into pointless waffle without getting to the point.

 

Thats the negatives, no point in trying to gloss over them because with technology moving so fast more and more people can and will start watching meetings from the comfort of home and they will such flaws with their own eyes instead of just hearing by word of mouth.

 

So on a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest) i would probably give this meeting a 2

Man of the match= Richard Lawson, he seems to be getting better every week and proving those who doubted him (especially myself) oh so very wrong!

[E I Addio]

Ok so a ten point win but not the most enjoyable of meetings to be honest, in fact i could not wait for it to end, track was poor, appeared to ride dry and slick, PK mentioned they could not get enough water into the track which puzzled me because it was not exactly a hot day so i wonder if there was a reason behind that, if there was something going on preventing work being carried out on the track it needs to stop, priority should always be to make sure the track is fit to provide a good standard of racing, mind you they did not even attempt to water it during the whole evening which makes me think it must have been because the track was too bare of shale so would have been dangerous to do so, either way its poor form, we pay enough to get in, we deserve to see and the riders deserve the chance to work their craft on a well prepared track, it clearly affected the home side more than the away as it always does so very much an own goal on lakesides part there, but none the less something that can be fixed for next time, certainly the week before the racing was in the main very good.

But thats just part of it because the meeting also had no tempo to it, the constant track grading (of the dust) did not damage the tempo, it completely destroyed it and coupled with the poor presentation did not help, everyone around me and i mean everyone is getting a bit fed up with it already, both men involved in that department are good blokes, real salt of the earth types who clearly love the sport and have been in and around it for many years but what we have simply is not working, its having an adverse effect on the entire show because people cant hear properly what is being said or end up zoning out because it decends into pointless waffle without getting to the point.

 

Thats the negatives, no point in trying to gloss over them because with technology moving so fast more and more people can and will start watching meetings from the comfort of home and they will such flaws with their own eyes instead of just hearing by word of mouth.

 

So on a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest) i would probably give this meeting a 2

Man of the match= Richard Lawson, he seems to be getting better every week and proving those who doubted him (especially myself) oh so very wrong!

 

 

I wasn't going to comment but I think that post more or less sums up what allot of fans were thinking on Friday night. More particularly it touches on an issue that has been rumbling on for over a year now, concerning the track.

 

Some years ago Jon Cook said in his programme notes that what the riders wanted most of all was a smooth consistent surface to race on, and since then I have noticed that if the surface was good the racing was invariably good almost irrespective of how much dirt there was on the track and despite what some on here say the racing was raised to a pretty decent level under the present promotion.

 

IMO the downward slide started towards the end of 2012 when the track was starting to break up and develop ruts at times towards the end of meetings. This was noticeable at the Rico Memorial for example. Then at the start of 2013 Dave Watt broke his wrist when he hit a rut. so much for a smooth consistent surface. Thoughout last year we were constantly getting sub-standard tracks although occasionally , out of blue, a good track would be produced and we saw good racing, but it still went back to the poor surface. I remember one week when Piotr Swiderski refused to go out in heat 15 because the track was in his opinion dangerous. Piotr is not short of either bottle or commitment so when a rider of that calibre won't come out something is wrong. On the other hand, when Wolves came down last year, the track was literally under water at 5-30 but the track staff not only got the meeting on but they provided a pretty decent racing surface so one wonders what is going on.

 

As Claret 73 said the previous week the racing was, in the main pretty good so what suddenly went wrong on Friday ? Despite what people say I don't think it was lack of shale. I did hear that fresh shale had been put down on Friday. I don't know if that's true but there certainly was dirt on the track because the trick is to look at the kick-boards on the bends, and there was certainly dirt piled up against them which the track staff were dragging back at various pints in the meeting . There was certainly water on the track because I noticed before the start there was quite a muddy patch on the approach to turn 3 although, as it turned out this got churned in pretty quickly. Also, looking at the way Adam Ellis reared up and fell off in his first crash , I can't see how that would happen if there was no grip on the track. But whatever it was the track certainly wasn't good.

 

The irony is that there was a pretty good crowd there and if we get many repeats of Friday's fiasco those numbers may well diminish rapidly.

 

And yes Claret 73 is right about Rich Lawson. Improved beyond recognition from the 3-point reserve that joined the club last year. Good for him.