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Due to the new (confusing) GP point system introduced by the FIM , it seems that the heat races are not contested with the same intensity by the riders anymore, knowing that the points they score in the heats do not count for real in the world championship. A rider can affort to drop five or six points in the heat races, which will still be enough to make the top eight. Poinst scored to not count in teh end, so why shoud a riders take any risks in a heat race. That lack of desperation to go for every single point was quite obvious last night. The important races are only the two semis and the final. The heats have become rather dull now. Also, the gap in points with the new scorign system has become huge already. And with only the top six (instead of eight) qualifying for next year, there will soon be a lot of riders below the top ten riding the SGPs without much motivation.

Excellent meeting all round. How many people are aware of the absolute nightmare they had getting riders there? On Wednesday, Wightlinks new and largest ferry Victoria was put out of action due to a mishap. Almost every rider booking had to be changed, some being switched to Lymington Right up to about 4pm, there were still problems. Fortunately, everyone made it in time. Even on the last ferry back, we were all sat round chatting. Barry? Going around everyone thanking us for coming etc. 28 races on just over 3hrs, including a track repair hold up and 3 x ambulance visits Something for everyone. A complete contrast to your 'normal BSPL' meeting of 15 Hts...... now go home. KIds were involved from start to finish. Barry even apologised that due to holdups, he couldnt hold the kids running race. They are working their socks off to produce something you dont normally see. Breaking the 'established mold'. They are succeeding and Im sure the BSPL are watching everything very closely. Long may it continue.

You could be expecing a wean for all we care.

Tai will continue to make a very decent living at league level in Poland and Sweden for as many years as he wants and will probably be in SGP for the next few years but I don't see him being World Champ again.

Our ratio of 'false starts' and first bend incidents must be much higher than Polands where start marshals seem to weild some power (supported visually and audibly by the referee).. Riders dont fly off in all directions like they seem to do over here, with their bikes strictly aligned straight, and their front wheels practically touching the tapes (akin to cycle speedway), meaning no roll backs to help preempt the start.. And the 2 mins is sacrosanct. If you are not ready you are out.. 'Professional' is a good word to describe it..

I hope I am the not only fan who has noticed that only one promoter has had any input to this thread! I also noted that the promotion concerned left the BSPL after being treated like dirt by the powers that be in the run up to this season. Well done to Barry Bishop and the Warriors promotion for all the hard work they do to put on entertainment that speedway fans can enjoy. From all the reports I have seen the first two meetings have been a success from the point of view of entertainment value and good crowds which is very good news. All I now need them to sort out is South Western Railway and Wightlink so they run the late boat from Ryde and the late train from Portsmouth so I can enjoy the racing and get home to Wimbledon after the meeting. Sadly the local council allowed a football stadium to be built on the Speedway and Stock Car track in Plough Lane that I enjoyed both sports from August 1957 (6th October 1962 in the case of stox) until the last car meeting on 26th March 2017. After what happened at Wimbledon I know one firm I would never buy a flat or house from.

Referee had 3 decisions to make and got all 3 wrong. Woffinden one was ridiculous, dropped it miles after any contact, so much room to stay on. Madsen, there was contact but it was minimal and there was a delay till Emil realised he should drop it. The final, look at the line Janowski took, he was so tight going down the straight he was riding over gate 2! He was never going to have the correct angle to turn it in time with another rider alongside him and ploughed into Emil. Crazy decision to exclude Emil.

Does age have to be a factor though? I think Luke is more entitled to be in the rising star category with three years of experience, than Bates or Bacon who had three times that. The scheme is a good one and is yielding results already - Brennan, Palin, Flint, the Thompsons - all making good progress. In the early 1970s they didn't really need a rising star scheme because there were more tracks and no foreign riders in the Second Division, but John Louis didn't start until he was nearly 30 and would have been entitled to be a rising star by today's standards. He went on to finish on the rostrum at the World Final.

We had pretty much that at Peterborough, my father was Start Marshal and I wore the blue overalls. We only had five in the team as 'red' acted as assistant during the race. We used to rake our gate after every race too.

My memories of Canterbury in the late 60's were a team of start line crew who used to line up behind all 4 riders, plus the start Marshal and assistant (to hand him the flags obviously) plus numerous track rakers on the bends and pit staff to push the riders out... all volunteers presumably.. I think if you had that now they would outnumber the crowd!

The only time I've ever seen a start marshall get a rider up to the tapes was at Bradford (could have been Peterborough) when the starter grabbed John Jorgensen's handlebars and physically dragged him to the tapes, he was not happy about it

The trouble with that is that the Start Marshall is provided by the home club and will probably be a member of the supporters club and be regaled from head to toe in club merchandise (if available ) under their stripey tops. They'd have to be "supplied" to each meeting in the same way that an "impartial" referee is, much like in Football with the lino's.

Seriously I think they should be an extension of the referee on the track... what they say at the start goes and if ignored they have the power to exclude, no point otherwise..

Yep...An awful night of work from the ref. I thought the Woffinden and Sayfutdinov (semi final) incidents were pretty similar....There was contact, but the rider contacted took the slight hit and had plenty of time to gather it up and race on, but they chose to just bail out well after the contact. It's hard to argue with their choice when refs side with them, but it encourages riders to do just that, and that is NOT the sport that I know and love. A bit of barging and banging side by side is what makes the sport great. If it turns into a sport of "I got touched, so I am slowly falling off long after the contact to get someone else excluded or get back into the restart" then the sport is done for. The final was a different situation, but I find it hard to see how Emil was to blame. He races a "normal" line but gets wiped out by someone using a really weird line...As a home track rider, maybe Maciej had some special knowledge of what would work and so maybe I am doing him a disservice, but as an outsider, it just seemed like he steamed into an impossible line and collected an innocent who was using a normal line. As I have said, I don't think Emil deserved the place in the final based on his semi final bail out, but I am very glad that he walked away from the crash in the final...I was worried for a while after that.

Thought Leon should have been in Heat 8 given the start he had to the meeting.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, Barry. I did hesitate before making the original posting as it seemed a bit negative but I am glad that you feel you are getting good crowds and long may you continue to do so.

I really don’t know why people continually bang on about one big league because it isn’t going to happen, primarily because of a lack of available riders and two the fact that quite a few clubs cannot or won’t put a competitive championship side together. Their is still a difference between the leagues but it’s definitely getting closer.

Sunny at the moment... showers predicted this afternoon

Current standings (team, number of meetings completed, won, draw, losses, team bonus points, won points-lost points team points) Smederna 9 8 0 1 1 462 - 348 17 Lejonen 10 7 0 3 2 476 - 424 16 Västervik 10 5 2 3 2 472 - 428 14 Vetlanda 10 5 1 4 1 432 - 468 12 Dackarna 9 5 1 3 0 445 - 365 11 Masarna 10 3 1 6 1 428 - 472 8 Rospiggarna 9 3 1 5 0 387 - 422 7 Indianerna 10 3 1 6 0 418 - 482 7 Piraterna 9 0 1 8 0 349 - 460 1

Better than I hoped for, at least Berwick do have an achievable target to aim for in tonight's return match though I still make Glasgow big odds-on favourites. At least its good to see Arron Summers back winning races, but we seem to need to convince Jye Etheridge he is racing for Belle Vue........

Tbh a club has in the past cancelled a meeting cos a GP was on the same night. (This was a while ago though prob early 2000s) But that was when more the top league riders were in it. So it's not a surprising question but I thought Scunthorpe would have cancelled/rearranged the meeting a lot earlier if that was the case.

Just spent the last hour thinking how British speedway could re-attract the punters and provide value for money - sorry to waffle on... 1. Scrap doubling up once and for all. If there's not enough riders to fill both leagues then combine the two leagues into one. All we see now is the same riders racing each other all of the time just in different race jackets depending on what night of the week it is. If a football player turned out for Chelsea on Saturday and then Millwall on Wednesday it would be called a joke! 2. Bring back the aggregate bonus point. This current point system is stupid and confusing. The old bonus point gave a meeting something to race for even if a team was losing on the night and sometimes we even had a run-off. 3. Revert to the old 13 heat format. Have a full 2nd half which includes junior league races and individual heats. How about also staging say 4 80cc races prior to the main meeting? 4. Employ a centre green announcer/ master of ceremonies that can actually entertain the crowds with a bit of humour and also one that knows what they are talking about. This was the one key area where most tracks fail. Most of them are boring dinosaurs from the 60's. Also do away with the boring rider interviews. Most of the time the riders don't want to talk and what they do say is boring and can easily cure a sleep disorder. 5. Actually promote the sport. Local radio and other media is a great thing. Don't just open the gates and expect people to turn up. Those days are gone.

Mr Shouty must have listened to the feedback about Chris Louis on comms in the last GP. Not quiet as shouty as usual, which makes for a pleasant change

It used to be the case that helmets had to be worn if practice starts were to be done, for a slow ride round bare heads were OK. That could have changed though. When I was a Promoter I always insisted that the riders didn't put their helmet on until they'd been introduced.

But that's really a mis-translation. Loan riders doubling up would be more accurate description of what is going on