SON 2020

[screm]

I found last night very un-satisfactory as the meeting should never have started, especially with track conditions at the start of heat one and with little prospect of getting the meeting completed. You have to feel for Australia who had to face the top nations in their opening rides but didn't get the chance to race the weaker nations, Team GB and the Czech`s, had they done there would've every chance of challenging for a top three spot. 

The guys I really feel sorry for are those who hired cherry pickers to view the meeting, those things aren't cheap to hire. Poor guys only saw half a meeting and got a soaking for their troubles.

[PHILIPRISING]

9 hours ago, HenryW said:

WHY are you still asking about this?

Elite sports people and their support team do NOT have to self isolate in the UK.

VISTING crickets teams (Pakistan, West Indies men and women and Australia) did... 

[Midland Red]

1 hour ago, screm said:

I found last night very un-satisfactory as the meeting should never have started, especially with track conditions at the start of heat one and with little prospect of getting the meeting completed. You have to feel for Australia who had to face the top nations in their opening rides but didn't get the chance to race the weaker nations, Team GB and the Czech`s, had they done there would've every chance of challenging for a top three spot. 

The guys I really feel sorry for are those who hired cherry pickers to view the meeting, those things aren't cheap to hire. Poor guys only saw half a meeting and got a soaking for their troubles.

Team GB weren’t riding - Great Britain took their place 

[Haza]

Definitely need to bring back the World Cup and run it every other season . 

[1 valve]

Was there a supplementary rule made to allow Poland & Russia to finish the meeting without their U21 rider having to take the compulsory ride as per the rules? 

[geoff100]

10 hours ago, HenryW said:

WHY are you still asking about this?

Elite sports people and their support team do NOT have to self isolate in the UK.

Do u really think that Dan bewley and his crew coming to ride in a mickey mouse meeting at berwick on a wed night counts as Elite sports.!

[OveFundinFan]

3 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

Was there a supplementary rule made to allow Poland & Russia to finish the meeting without their U21 rider having to take the compulsory ride as per the rules? 

The had to use the reserve twice during the programmed meeting ie 21 heats. Due to weather/safety the meeting was curtailed after the minimum 14 heats and result called.  More then likely all was within the rules. Those teams that used the reserve no doubt did so for their anticipated gain. Poland and Russia didn’t need to use their reserve, their top two were doing fine, but if the meeting had gone all the way then their reserve would have had to be used. Would have been interesting.

[False dawn]

3 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

Was there a supplementary rule made to allow Poland & Russia to finish the meeting without their U21 rider having to take the compulsory ride as per the rules? 

I guess the argument is that they would have had to give their U21 rider an outing in the planned 21 heats. As no one knew that the meeting would be called off after 14 heats, they could say that they planned a later inclusion of their reserves. Of course, they may just have been clever, predicting that there might be an early end to the meeting and not risking the use of their U21 rider until after heat 14.

[Gunner85]

11 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

Was there a supplementary rule made to allow Poland & Russia to finish the meeting without their U21 rider having to take the compulsory ride as per the rules? 

Had they completed 21 heats then the reserves would have had to ride

[OveFundinFan]

4 minutes ago, geoff100 said:

Do u really think that Dan bewley and his crew coming to ride in a mickey mouse meeting at berwick on a wed night counts as Elite sports.!

The poster said “elite sports people and their sports team”, made no reference to the quality of the event they travelling to.

[False dawn]

8 minutes ago, geoff100 said:

Do u really think that Dan bewley and his crew coming to ride in a mickey mouse meeting at berwick on a wed night counts as Elite sports.!

I'm afraid it does. As stated earlier, the definition of Elite sport is where the participants make the majority of their income from that sport.

[racers and royals]

7 minutes ago, OveFundinFan said:

The had to use the reserve twice during the programmed meeting ie 21 heats. Due to weather/safety the meeting was curtailed after the minimum 14 heats and result called.  More then likely all was within the rules. Those teams that used the reserve no doubt did so for their anticipated gain. Poland and Russia didn’t need to use their reserve, their top two were doing fine, but if the meeting had gone all the way then their reserve would have had to be used. Would have been interesting.

The reserve had to be used just once- on each day- if that`s what you meant in the opening sentence.

[IainB]

16 hours ago, tyke said:

Lemon just said in his interview, Jack Holder was his No.2 rider, He declined and then Lemon went to his next on his list ie Fricke

I think I heard Lemon also say (on the talk speedway podcast) that Chris had also declined to ride. What the hell Lemon was doing using Lidsey against the Poles beats me, he's made some very strange decisions in the past also... I wonder if his performance is ever scrutinised by MA

14 hours ago, chunky said:

That is the REALLY sad thing...

To be fair if any of the other countries lost a rider of the calibre of Woffinden they would be in severe trouble, GB have been very unlucky for the last couple of years in losing him for the SoN. Sweden without Lindgren, Denmark without Madsen, Aussie without Doyle, Russia without one of their top 2 etc

14 hours ago, Steve Shovlar said:

We hear every year that all these youngsters are fighting to win through. Then end up as second strings in the second division at best.

IMO you should ALWAYS pick your strongest team for a world cup event, there are many riders that should have been picked ahead of Kemp, no disrespect to him. If you constantly pick youngsters "to give them experience" then you ignore the riders that you were giving that experience to a few years back, you then get into a catch 22 situation of giving riders the experience and then jettisoning them after they've had the experience. Steve Worrall was "given the experience" a few years back and now he's totally forgotten about.

13 hours ago, Midland Red said:

Has there ever been a worse commentary by Pearson than tonight’s?

At least he didn't mention Greg Hancock tonight... which must be a first

11 hours ago, False dawn said:

But that's not what happened. The SON finals are designed to run over 42 heats plus a semi final and a final. So 14 heats does not in any way represent 50% of "the meeting". Actually it's less than a third.
So we are left with an empty sense of being short changed. And that's before we even consider the quality of racing (for the most part) on such a wet circuit.
Oh, and when did rain make a circuit bumpy? I can accept that the surface might become uneven following some racing. But those bumps were there from the start of the "practice session".

Absolutely spot on False dawn, can't disagree with a word you say. This was a world championship event for god's sake and to treat it like an end of season fixture filler that just needed to be run to get it over and done with was a complete disgrace and devalued an already massively devalued competition even further, if that's the way they're going to treat it they should just scrap the competition. The track was a disgrace and the meeting should have been called off before the start. The bumps in the track have been there for weeks as seen in Lublin's final Ekstraliga fixtures and nothing was done to smooth them out.

To hold this even in October was complete madness, why on earth it wasn't planned for the summer months like it always has been is a mystery

[False dawn]

16 hours ago, tyke said:

Lemon just said in his interview, Jack Holder was his No.2 rider, He declined and then Lemon went to his next on his list ie Fricke

I thought I heard him say that and then thought, no, that can't be right. 

I have heard a rumour that now that Marek Cieslak has retired as the Polish team manager, MA have engaged him as an advisor.
That's the end of Jack Holder's international career then.

[Fromafar]

12 minutes ago, iainb said:

I think I heard Lemon also say (on the talk speedway podcast) that Chris had also declined to ride. What the hell Lemon was doing using Lidsey against the Poles beats me, he's made some very strange decisions in the past also... I wonder if his performance is ever scrutinised by MA

To be fair if any of the other countries lost a rider of the calibre of Woffinden they would be in severe trouble, GB have been very unlucky for the last couple of years in losing him for the SoN. Sweden without Lindgren, Denmark without Madsen, Aussie without Doyle, Russia without one of their top 2 etc

IMO you should ALWAYS pick your strongest team for a world cup event, there are many riders that should have been picked ahead of Kemp, no disrespect to him. If you constantly pick youngsters "to give them experience" then you ignore the riders that you were giving that experience to a few years back, you then get into a catch 22 situation of giving riders the experience and then jettisoning them after they've had the experience. Steve Worrall was "given the experience" a few years back and now he's totally forgotten about.

At least he didn't mention Greg Hancock tonight... which must be a first

Absolutely spot on False dawn, can't disagree with a word you say. This was a world championship event for god's sake and to treat it like an end of season fixture filler that just needed to be run to get it over and done with was a complete disgrace and devalued an already massively devalued competition even further, if that's the way they're going to treat it they should just scrap the competition. The track was a disgrace and the meeting should have been called off before the start. The bumps in the track have been there for weeks as seen in Lublin's final Ekstraliga fixtures and nothing was done to smooth them out.

To hold this even in October was complete madness, why on earth it wasn't planned for the summer months like it always has been is a mystery

It was planned for the summer months originally(May) but when it got called off they wanted to hold on to our money rather than refund.Thats the only reason IMO.

[SPEEDY69]

18 minutes ago, iainb said:

I think I heard Lemon also say (on the talk speedway podcast) that Chris had also declined to ride. What the hell Lemon was doing using Lidsey against the Poles beats me, he's made some very strange decisions in the past also... I wonder if his performance is ever scrutinised by MA

To be fair if any of the other countries lost a rider of the calibre of Woffinden they would be in severe trouble, GB have been very unlucky for the last couple of years in losing him for the SoN. Sweden without Lindgren, Denmark without Madsen, Aussie without Doyle, Russia without one of their top 2 etc

IMO you should ALWAYS pick your strongest team for a world cup event, there are many riders that should have been picked ahead of Kemp, no disrespect to him. If you constantly pick youngsters "to give them experience" then you ignore the riders that you were giving that experience to a few years back, you then get into a catch 22 situation of giving riders the experience and then jettisoning them after they've had the experience. Steve Worrall was "given the experience" a few years back and now he's totally forgotten about.

At least he didn't mention Greg Hancock tonight... which must be a first

Absolutely spot on False dawn, can't disagree with a word you say. This was a world championship event for god's sake and to treat it like an end of season fixture filler that just needed to be run to get it over and done with was a complete disgrace and devalued an already massively devalued competition even further, if that's the way they're going to treat it they should just scrap the competition. The track was a disgrace and the meeting should have been called off before the start. The bumps in the track have been there for weeks as seen in Lublin's final Ekstraliga fixtures and nothing was done to smooth them out.

To hold this even in October was complete madness, why on earth it wasn't planned for the summer months like it always has been is a mystery

Absolutely agree about the part I've put in bold. To me, it doesn't matter if they're 60 years old, if they're in your top two, then they should ride. 

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

10 minutes ago, SPEEDY69 said:

Absolutely agree about the part I've put in bold. To me, it doesn't matter if they're 60 years old, if they're in your top two, then they should ride. 

Me too, I’m fed up with this one for the future line or to gain experience, you’re in a competition to win 

[Bagpuss]

42 minutes ago, iainb said:

IMO you should ALWAYS pick your strongest team for a world cup event, there are many riders that should have been picked ahead of Kemp, no disrespect to him. If you constantly pick youngsters "to give them experience" then you ignore the riders that you were giving that experience to a few years back, you then get into a catch 22 situation of giving riders the experience and then jettisoning them after they've had the experience. Steve Worrall was "given the experience" a few years back and now he's totally forgotten about.

Because he isn’t good enough. Other than possibly Ellis and Wright I don’t think any of our senior riders are. 

We have a really good crop of juniors at the moment, time to grasp the nettle and put all our efforts into developing them rather than wasting our time on older riders who will never make the grade. 

[geoff100]

Do u think the holder boys wanted to ride together and threw the dummy out when they couldnt, or perhaps no brown envelopes involved?

[IainB]

1 hour ago, Bagpuss said:

Because he isn’t good enough. Other than possibly Ellis and Wright I don’t think any of our senior riders are. 

We have a really good crop of juniors at the moment, time to grasp the nettle and put all our efforts into developing them rather than wasting our time on older riders who will never make the grade. 

Steve Worrall (as are many others) is better than Kemp, whether he was asked I don't know, but Kemp could easily be in the same position as Steve Worrall in a few years. Test Matches are for sorting the wheat from the chaff not world championship events