Speedy swindon pete

Yet again. “Block pass from…” just as the supposed blocked rider rides freely past again. Home work for the winter lads.

What’s the steam coming out from behind Lambert’s saddle all about? Can’t remember seeing that coming from a bike before.

Getting so bored of people excitedly saying that there’s loads of dirt on the track tonight…Tatum prodding about saying it’s really grippy and the riders are going to love it…Only for the racing to be utter toilet. I don’t care what the riders love or the dinosaurs think makes a good racing surface…just dumping a load of dirt on the track doesn’t make for good racing these days. It’s just another example of the people that matter in the sport still thinking it’s the 1950’s, and black leathers and knee deep tracks are where the real entertainment is. Turgid stuff.

What a glum day. On one hand it’s no surprise to learn of teams struggling to make plans for ‘21 with everything so uncertain still and deciding not to risk it. On the other it is somewhat of a surprise to me that Swindon have taken the decision themselves with the rest of the league still hoping to run this year. The stadium situation has been nearly 15 years in the making now though. All the false hopes of each previous announcement only make you more certain that the new stadium will never appear. I’ve said for a while that I thought the best hope of keeping speedway at Blunsdon is for crowds to keep turning up in good numbers, keeping the club in the local eye and as a tangible asset to the town and its people, rather than it just withering away and the community seeing it as something that should be put out of its misery. COVID has given Osbourne the perfect scenario to quietly shake the club off the site. Even if no building work on the site happens in the next 12 months, you can easily imagine the stadium being written off as unsuitable for use at scale after being sat empty for two years. Gives Osbourne the chance to show he’s not the the ghoulish, deceitful, slimebag some of us might think of him as based on previous form though, if a new stadium were to somehow emerge. I won’t be putting much money on it myself though. Even if against the odds, the robins do take to track in 2022, you wonder just what will be left of other clubs by then. Hard to feel much positivity about the sport at the moment.

Could tell he was a wrong‘un the moment he rode through Daryl Ritchings at Blunsdon years ago.

Balls, Adam not had much luck this evening. Did well to get off the bike as quickly as he did. Not disgraced himself at all tonight. Decent effort.

What’s batchelor got to do with it? Its not just Wednesday night Madsen flattered to deceive. I’ve noticed it over the last couple of seasons. Not saying he’s a bad rider at all (although silencer-gate has made me question many results of his since), but if riders like Sayfudinov, Woffinden, Zmazlik etc had that kind of speed in their bikes, where they could generate speed on parts of the track that no other riders in the same race/meeting seem able to, they barely be dropping any points at all.

Very much enjoyed that from Lambert last night. Great to see him improve off the starts where it was his only major weakness in previous seasons. This short series has also convinced me of just how much a bang-average rider Madsen is. His bike is somehow so much faster than everyone else’s off the bends and down the straights, yet he still flounders about in most races, dropping points by getting tangled up in battles with other riders. My Nan could score decent points on his bike.

Can’t believe I’m reading posts giving riders stick for not fancying it at Częstochowa yesterday. Riders have been waiting nearly 3 months to start racing and are going to have far less meetings to make money from than they usually would in a season. It can’t come as a surprise to see them not wanting to ride on an incredibly unpredictable track on their first meeting back in anger. There were no fans in the stadium to turn away and with no other racing, easy to rearrange for a few days time where the weather and track should be better. The performance of the bikes is a different argument and agree that things need to be done to make them better in a wider range of conditions, but we are where we are with that at the moment.

Trouble is, I’m not sure how else the club could really play it, to be honest. I’m not sure if the club/promotion being publicly snotty about things towards Osbourne and his cronies would have got us anywhere fast. By at least appearing to be encouraging of Stadia UK and going along with the “this is going to be great” party line, it puts all the hype, focus and attention, where it rightly should be, on Stadia UK to come up with the goods. The club social media statement said it itself... “Over to the developers”. Its quite clearly on them if there’s any further bumps in the road on this. Everyone else is essentially a passenger in this saga.

I’m sure a health and safety officer would have a field day before long if they look around hard enough.

I‘ve said the same on the stadium thread in the “General” section. Irony being that GI are responsible for the lack of semi-viable alternative/rival in Reading. The option of a ”direct hotline to the stadium for noise complaints”....absolutely laughable.

How are people still engaging with these people. Ignore. We have far more substantial things to worry about. https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/18147100.decision-day-next-week-new-abbey-stadium/

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/18147100.decision-day-next-week-new-abbey-stadium/ Cant help but have bad feelings about the lists of potential issues and purposely half baked statements and ideas offered. “Opportunities for support and investment have been lost to other sites in Swindon and competing stadiums in the region are now starting to draw trade away.” Is a quote from the owners. Where? Have I missed all these speedway/dog racing facilities opening up nearby? Would be a possible excuse if Reading was still there, but some one razzed that. Can’t think who. “The owners proposals include screening with trees and other barriers and also a ‘neighbour hotline’, manned during all events, to enable residents to report noise complaints directly to the stadium“. You can’t make this stuff up...or infact you actually can. Thia is all Osbourne does, spout empty, vacuous, nonsense to slither away from scrutiny and delay things further. All eyes on next week.

And people think they are the ones laughing at him/them/it! Whilst all people are doing is spreading the nonsense further through the thread, which is exactly what ‘it’ wants to happen. Incredible people can’t see this. Just ignore, rise above....they don’t exist.

Oh I see..... it’s a troll.

A great night to be at Blunsdon last night. The place was rammed. Just reward for the promotion team for doing a great job this season. From the very start in getting the new track sorted out of their own pocket so quickly for the season (which has buoyed the mood at the abbey alone), to lifting the league trophy in front of thousands last night. Superb. It wouldn’t have mattered who we were against, We’d have blown away anyone over two legs. It’s as if everyone in the team has been riding with an extra 2 points on their average since mid August, just fuelled by confidence alone. People can blather on about Ipswich riders not wanting it or showing no effort, but no amount of passion or effort matters when the team you’re up against is just faster in nearly every department. Well done to the Witches fans there for making the journey last night. Can’t have been much fun watching that, but to be honest that semi final performance at home was their great crowning moment, which they deserved to enjoy. It would have been a bit more exciting and more memorable if it was a tighter score line and having that moment of sheer relief when you squeak a result near the end of the meeting, but we’ve had plenty of those earlier in the season at blunsdon anyway. Watching back on BT, it certainly wasn’t much of a spectacle for the TV viewer, especially as the cameras were barely pointing in the right place half the time, but there was some enjoyable action on track being there in person. Vissing being particularly entertaining. It was great to have all the lads scoring well over most if not all the play off matches. Massive shame to have to ditch a couple of them next year. I Wonder where all the comments about not winning anything with a team lacking a free scoring reserve have gone? Not the right time to say who should be binned, but in terms of keeping riders, Tobiasz on a 6 average, if he can be persuaded to stay in the UK next year is no-brainer. Injury free he should be making a mockery of that average. The crowd and success of last night should be used to put more pressure on sorting this bloody stadium out. Clearly loads of people around the town care enough about speedway still to turn up and pack the place out and even more will be royaly pissed off if further development of the site was to finally bring an end to having speedway at Blunsdon. We need to make the site an immovable object by keeping crowds healthy and general good will about the place, rather than the life just being sucked out of it gradually, as I’m sure Osbourne/SBC/other shady characters with vested interests, are rather hoping will happen. Sounds like a well deserved piss up at Rosco’s last night. He was bloody insufferable 10 minutes after heat 15 last night, so god knows what what he’s like at 2 in the morning after a few bottles of babycham . Great stuff.

Maybe you actually need to be funny, Steve?

Pirates riders and fans should just be thankful it’s not them getting humiliated in the final. Small comforts.

Just stop taking notice of what he says. There’s nothing clever in crowing on about the most likely scenario. He’s had an excellent few days fishing because people keep on rising to his bait. It would make the night a bit more entertaining if there were some diabolical reffing decisions to even the scores up a bit and create a bit of jeopardy. Some hard racing, controversial reffing and few handbags flying about would fire the atmosphere right up and make it a much better playoff. The weather might still have its say yet. Had a shower here already but bright again now.

Great job from the Robins, well done lads. Hard lines on the Witches. Not sure why everyone is going so hard on Ipswich, they were written off as wooden spoon holders at the start of the season yet have still made the League final through a bit of grit and determination that would be a right tonic for a few other teams in this league. People can’t act all surprised and dismissive when they struggle against a massively strong team that underperformed for a lot of the year but really hit their stride since late August. Credit to the track guys at Foxhall for turning round what was probably an absolute quagmire into a decent racing surface. Some more workable lines would have helped the spectacle a bit and some dirt on the fence for their riders that like that might have helped them, but it wasn’t at all bad considering the weather we’ve had. Not sure if a big dirt line would have helped much anyway, you still need to make decent starts and riders like Doyle, Ellis and Rasmus have no problem with a bit of grip. It’s not like Batch stormed it tonight because it was bald as a coot. Only half time, but it would take something catastrophic to happen for the Robins to mess this one up.

Fairplay to Batch. Trying to make sure there’s a bit of interest left in this for the 2nd leg. Taking one for the neutrals.

Be amazed if it’s taken them this long to twig.

Ellis jumping the gate so badly he’s having to come from the back. Can’t believe Poole choked against this lot.

Swindon gating tarts putting on a racing masterclass for the witches so far.