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Bjarne Pedersen set to retire is news most Pirate fans would view as the end of an era and most would see as sad to hear. He gave amazing service to Poole and always gave his best, his 21 points at Lakeside would forever live in my memory and I really hope he gets a farewell meeting because he fully deserves one.

How about having a heavy top 5 & having both Thompson Twins at reserve??

But that's the issue Vince, the 'normal league meetings', dont deliver those less regular fans who know about the sport, therefore dont deliver big crowds, hence no atmosphere, hence no increase in crowds. A perfect vicious circle.. The 'play off qualifiers' don't seem to engage people regularly enough, and the play off themselves almost become then a 'loss reducer' for the season as 'lapsed fans' come back. . However I bet at most tracks the increased attendance doesn't cover the overall short fall in attendance through the season to watch 'the qualifiers', by some distance... You might as well give away free tickets to as many people of a certain demographic as you can... I would suggest anyone 15 to 25 should just be targeted and offered free tickets as that is the glaring demographic missing from most Speedway meetings.. 15 year olds now hunt in packs so 10 or so would attend together, and even though there has been free admission for 'kids' for a long time at some tracks, not many get to 16+, leave school, and pay to attend, therefore the system doesn't garner any return.. And hardly anyone under 25 is seen at Speedway these days. And plenty of them will have jobs and disposable income due to more of them now still living with parents, before the (inevitable for many), 'family and mortgage' kicks in around 27-30 years old, and that disposable income becomes an oh, so distant memory.. Target these demographics and, if between 19 to 25, offer one free ticket and maybe three more meetings at say a tenner to try and get them hooked? Anyone 15 to 18, just throw free tickets at them.. They are not there now so no loss, and the more that attend (paying or not), the more atmosphere naturally gets created. Which may encourage more to attend more regularly in future. And a virtuous circle begins.. And if nothing else, should you reach the play offs there would be a good few hundred more in the local area who, (by definition of attending for free during the season), now know about the team and sport and might therefore, go along to watch on those nights and pay full price?

MASSIVE CONGRATS to Danny Ayres, 2019 Scorpion of the year, HAS to be back in 2020

I myself am in favour of radical changes which i won't repeat here because i can't take the flak atm. It does look, however that another season of 'lets pretend nothing's wrong' is ahead of us with 2/3 teams being bribed to enter the top league stripping the less disastrous (i won't say successful) CL and NL of clubs. One thing i would say again is that people talk about dilution when big names don't ride here but actually the product is well presented good racing, not necessarily star names whose names ,lets be honest, mean f. all to the general public.

Ah yes, being in the team was one of the three options in the article!

For me it's a no brainer to keep kasper on his low average and out the two you said get Ayres back. Think Tom will be at brum

I hope Kent gets accepted in the championship, nothing guaranteed yet I think

Play-Off group matches are open to abuse. We all know teams have suffered mysterious engine failures early on to prove they need strengthening as their poor averages take a hit. The Play-Off Finals may attract added interest, but I doubt that compensates for reduced crowds over the course of the season for matches that either team can afford to lose most of the time. I mean, who can take seriously chasing a top-four place in a table of seven sides. More teams make the Play-Off semis than fail. Fans aren't daft. I have watched a team, which purposely tried not to win a match they could have finished top of the qualifying table by doing so. I think even winning the aggregate bonus point, as it were back then, would have seen them finish table winners. That one instance implies the qualifying matches are nothing more than padding out the season for seven months.

Wroclaw hoping to sign Dan Bewley

I agree that a big crowd will make the whole thing seem better but how many return to watch normal league meetings in the future? Those extra people are surely lapsed and armchair fans in the main who normally keep an eye on the results in the local paper or watch the meetings on TV. Doesn't seem to engage new fans in any numbers or keep people paying to come in the door. It's been the case for years that a club doing well in the league increases it's crowds significantly, also been the case that often enough the increase doesn't pay for a competitive team. Promoters are much maligned for a lack of ambition when they run cheaper teams but in truth they are often the clubs that survive year on year.

Have an independent control board run the sport. Then put in a cap on the total amount of wages a club can pay it riders. So for argument sake a clubs had a wage cap of 10000 per meeting that would be upto the clubs how that was shared out among the 7 riders. If you wanted to go bulls out and sign 2 big expensive riders then fine but that would limit who you could sign further down. To make it work the riders are paid centrally from the independent body that runs the sport each club pays the 10000 to the central body after each home match. The end to average manipulation

Bjerre Kurtz Wright Bewley Lidsey Etheridge Auty or Pickering If Fricke decides not ride in the UK that would be a solid side with a number of riders capable of improving their averages.

The voting was carried out during one meeting, I was certainly shocked that Rory won rider of the season but wouldn’t have given it to Bomber myself. We can only answer for ourselves as to who we think should’ve won, we all have our own opinion

Nothing wrong with bikes, it's the tracks,,, those ssme bikes will be good on good tracks and poor on poor tracks, whatever country they are in. You are more likely to get better close racing on tracks that have multi lines into corners and on tracks that you don't have to scub all your speed off going into bends. Flowing race tracks most of the time offer better racing in most motor sports.

Please don't have such musings in public. The more ridiculous the idea ... The more likely that Armando will implement it.

Not forgetting Rob Woffinden.(Father to our World Champion).

No- riders in 1-7 have a total of 24 rides split between them. They are going to be well pleased at losing 2/3 rides a meeting !!

Pre season 2017, 2018 & 2019 Put him on ignore as it is easy & you don't have to read his posts(unless someone quotes them. He is a

Both Wrights wheels did cross the line, the start/finish line.

well after seeing the replay of Charles riding over the whit line . i am still looking for it . watched it tons of times and still cannot see where he went over the line with his driven (rear) wheel .. would like to see the Ben Barker exclusion too . Danny has admitted he locked up and Ben reacted in the only way poss . can anyone post that on here , seeing that the Newcastle management were so quick to put Charles exclusion on here while the meeting ongoing . so lets see it and maybe i will change my mind ... do it for Dish ! deffo all 4 back ...

Here:

Watching the replay and at no point did Wright have both wheels over the white line

A new track curator for the club. http://www.sheffield-speedway.com/news.php?extend.2808&fbclid=IwAR27vZMHhh-BKtCAoFVbzUZFt7ux8z2T1s457R2Q6LOVHX38OmAtHlfJvJA

I hope for Redcar and speedways sake that that isn't true. He's made a massive difference at Redcar over the last few seasons and is one of the best in the country , irreplaceable!