E I Addio

Nobody rode wider than Richard Lawson so if 14 points is going backwards, bring it on. Adam Ellis hunted down Rory Schlein and eventually caught him on the line by riding the wide line, and I don't recall Danny King, anywhere near the inside getting his 12 points. I agree the Tac Sub is a waste of time but I would have it dropped altogether. The public don't pay to see riders of the calibre of Scott Nicholls and Danny King take a TR against reserves where they win easily, as happened the last two weeks.If we must have a TR it shouldn't be heatleaders replacing reserves, it should be in other heats where they have to make a race of it.

Lakeside's average crowd is probably a fair bit lower than it was 5or 6 years ago, but that is symptomatic of many clubs, these days. I put that down mainly to the disastrous way the sport has been mismanaged in recent years. I see the rule that stopped riders from getting off the bike to prepare the start has been dropped already, barely a month into th e season, the latest example of how Chapman & Co stagger from one crazy idea to the next. Ipswich are fortunate in that they are apparently one of the very few clubs whose attendances have gone against the trend, but many others were in dire financial crisis at the end of last season. One thing that hasn't been mentioned on the thread was timing. Parade was at 8.pm, first race a little before 8.15, last race finished 1hr 20 min later, so credit to the ref for keeping it moving, as last weeks ref did well, so credit where it's due. I think a lot of Lakeside's supporters stopped going and maybe got out of the speedway habit as a result of last years disatrous decision to drop to NL, not that the club had much choice at the time, but some work has to be done now to win the missing fans back.

Not at all. As with most things in life if you approach a situation looking for the positives you’ll find them, and if you go in looking for the negatives you’ll find them. The glass that’s half empty is the same glass that’s half full. I spent Friday night enjoying the meeting -both teams. I really don’t get why people spend £17 to spend the evening moaning . Maybe you ought just not go to Lakeside, not think about it, and not follow the threads. Unless of course being miserable is what makes you happy, but it seems a strange attitude to me . Life’s a bit short to go round moaning about everything all the time.

So which track specialists is the team built round? The reality is that Lakesides top four scorers scored 39 points between them last night and 37 points between them at Peterborough last week. Virtually no difference there then . All four of them ride for big tracks in the Premiership League. Absolute nonsense to say the team is built round Lakeside track specialists. The three heat leaders plus Zach can ride most tracks pretty well.Its in the nature of speedway that most tracks have s home advantage which is why most meetings are wins for the home team wherever you go. The fact is that for reasons best known to yourself you have a chip on your shoulder about Jon Cook and Lakeside and are always looking to find whatever fault you can fault with the promotion and the club, never anything positive to say about anything so nobody values your opinion.

Crowd is difficult to say in the dark, and I don’t know what to expect crowd wise atCL level. It was far, far better than the crowds at NL meetings and I guess slightly below average for the old EL but didn’t look bad to me. Started on time and I thought ran very smoothly with I think only two races stopped both when Bowtell fell off. I disagree with Liam, I thought there were some good races, perhaps because it was quite tense until the later stages and at one stage I thought the Panthers were going to win. Not a single 5-1 in the whole meeting shows there was some tenacious riding.. I would say 9/10 for a smooth running meeting and 7/10for racing . If they are all like this for the season It will be a decent season. All subjective of course. I think the TR rule is a bit of a farce when a rider of Scott’s quality can replace a reserve like Tom Bacon not that it affected the result but it could have done. Cracking ride by Richard Lawson to win that race though. Nick Morris was a class above the rest.

Scott was making hard work for himself by poor gating and had to come from the back every time. Poor gates are no good against the likes of Ellis, Morris and Lawson . Scott should have had a couple of wins as he looked fast enough , but was too slow reaching the first bend. Looked very tired by Heat 13 and was riding defensively after that. I thought Peterboro looked a much better team on the track than they were on paper, and in a wide open league can probably fancy their chances. Ostergaard looked very good, probably the best I’ve seen him. Overall I thought they all rode pretty well and I enjoyed it. If this was a foretaste of what Championsip League is about then bring it on.

Most of the problems at the start are nothing to do with the tapes, they are invariably caused by the riders trying to jump the start. Whatever method of starting you have, there will always be a few problems as long as riders try to jump the start.

I have no doubt about Kyles commitment or effort. What I meant was I am not sure how far he will go this season. My guess is he will be a solid dependable second string rather than a potential heatleader, but if he gets an injury free season who knows how far he might go. I am certainly glad to have him in the team.

To be honest, sid, I think the Hammers will need to learn to function as a 6 man team and leave Alfie to pick up whatever points he can without putting him under pressure. Alfie has a good attitude, he is very brave and determined but he is very inexperienced and still has a long way to go. It’s a pity he couldn’t get a NL place as well, to bring him on. The crowd love him though because he is a trier. Zach has tremendous flair and instinct for racing. If he stays injury free he should, I hope finish the season as a genuine second string at this level . Ben isa more thoughtful rider who uses his head .He should do ok on the technical tracks but still needs to learn to let the bike run on the big ones. Nick just oozes professionalism and we are lucky to have him. My guess is he will score well wherever he goes. Adam will be the sort of rider that wins matches, I would say is now capable of beating any rider in the league if he gates, especially at home. Rich Lawson is probably as good as he is going to get, but is good at most tracks. Kyle Newman I am not sure about . He just gets on with the job nor seeming to be doing anything spectacular, but he was joint fourth highest scorer last night which was pretty good. I would say he is a bit of a dark horse, maybe not pulling up any trees, but not getting too manylast places either, which sort of what you want in a second string. Overall I think we are very lucky with the team.

Pretty decent crowd considering how bitterly cold it was, bigger than anything we saw for NL racing. It seems like going up to CL was definitely the right choice crowd wise. The track was in very good condition considering the sort of winter we have had. Otbad racing considering the track and tyres were so cold . The first few races were a bit processional but once the riders blew the cobwebs away there were some good races, considering it was only a warm up meeting and nobody was sticking their neck out taking chances. Zak did very well to reach the final. Ben had a decent win. Alfie was better than the score sheet implied. Two falls when well placed cost him points. I thought he did well to twice gate first against some much more experienced riders, but a pity he blew it by falling off a couple of laps later, but that will improve. If he stays on his bike he should pick up points at home. The potential is there but he still has a long way to go.

The reality of modern speedway is that 15 heats is all crowd numbers will usually support, especially in these early season meetings . Very few 20 or 23 heat individual meetings pay their way these days except at the highest level.

Probably because Swindon have slipped @ meeting in on Thursday and Nick, Zak and Adam will be down there.

Its not helped by the fact that Poole and Glasgow are running meetings the same night, plus the fact that there are other warm up meetings the same week. I think its fair that the 7 home riders are all in, and Cookie has done the right thing in offering a place to Max Clegg but of course there will be those who don't want to see riders of basically NL standard. Personally I would have liked to have seen Jason Edwards being given a place but then even more people would moan. So once Max Clegg is added that only leave 4 places. I don't think anyone could moan about Ed Kennet or Steve Worrall being in the line up. Well see how it works out but given reasonable weather I don't think it will be too bad for a loosener.

I cant find him saying anything about money. He posted that he was unhappy about being dropped to reserve for the Rico meetng,

I think the bottom line is that the fans just didn't take to NL racing and stayed at home. Not much incentive when Lakeside's bottom three were probably the worst bottom three in the league and were just a waste of space.Then when Zak got injured and Alfie was seconded to Newcastle most of the time there wasn't a lot left to get excited about.