SteelShoe

Thanks Phil for the positive comments. Strong south-westerly wind yesterday. The back straight and turn 3 offers shelter to wind based around a westerly direction. We could see that the trees on starting gate side were really getting blown around. Agree with what you say about Ashton , wev'e seen him 3 or 4 times at Worky this season and he looks a great prospect for someone so young. Re your comment around Harry, unfortunately that is the only Harry the Worky fans have seen hence the reason he has dropped nearly 5 points off his average. Looking forward to the meetings against the Colts, looking at James Pearson, Jack Smith and Sam Hagon whom has already impressed at Worky then a feast of entertainnent could be in store.

On the fence re this one, there are a number of variables including degree of sponsorship that may influence any decision. The project is still very young and no doubt there is still plenty of work to do in further development of facilities so i tend to think it will be NDL in the shorter term Like Neila mentions no one knows what the structure of speedway will look like next season. Huge doubts about long established clubs such as Peterborough (land sold for housing) and Wolverhampton (non-renewal of lease) are just two clubs who look unlikely to be at tapes next season at least. It may well be the remaing Premiership and Championship clubs will have to amalgamate to form a British League ?. The NDL is a development league and i admit to having been very impressed with most of the young riders i've seen this season. It would be great to see more young riders stepping up and more teams joining the structure because the entertainment and skill level has generally been high. The slight issue i have with the NDL is that there are not enough fixtures for supporters and also for riders who are not riding in other leagues.

Yeah crowd down today which was a shame as the racing was generally of a very good standard.

Thoroughly enjoyable afternoons racing, 23 heats done and dusted in around two and a half hours so well done to all concerned. Young Ashton Boughen set a new track record in heat 1 in a time of 56.3 seconds knocking 0.2 seconds off Connor Bailey's previous best. The first 6 heats were nearly all sub 57 seconds and this may well have continued if the initial track moisture levels were maintained. Ashton generally looked the faster rider throughout the meeting, his semi final 2 winning time was 1.6 seconds faster than that set in semi final 1 an indication. It was great to see him pulling his celebratory wheelies. Other riders to catch the eye were Steve Boxall who never looked like a rider who had given up the sport 5 years ago, Max Clegg, Jack Smith, Nathan Ablitt and Max Perry. Best Comet on show was Sam McGurk who very nearly made the final and may well have done so with a better start from gate 4 in the semi. Young Elliot Kelly showed signs of regaining his early season form and looked like making the semi final after riding the outside line to get to the front in his last heat only to put the bike down on the exit to turn 4. Harry failed to beat an opponent and his struggle to find form continues. Personally i thought the Grand Prix format worked well and at £15 for 23 entertaining heats was good value for money. Thanks to all those who took up rider and heat sponsorship in so short a time. I noticed heat 3 had been sponsored by a certain Kauko Nieminen. Thanks to ref Craig Ackroyd who kept the meeting moving along nicely. It was good to see Comets legend Carl Stonehewer in the crowd. Special mention to Steve Lawson, the track was smooth as the proverbial babies bottom. Didn't stay for the World Cup Final showing as this didn't start until 7pm rather than the usual GP start time of 6pm.

Think Harry would have show much more to secure a place next season should Comets go NDL again.

agree completely

I think you're quite right re the Comets team. If Harry McGurk and Luke Crang had just maintained their starting average Comets current team average applicable from 1st august would be 48.47 not 41.25 which would easily be the highest in the league. Harry has dropped 4.84 and Luke 2.39. Ace has dropped a small 0.23, the rest of the riders have increased their starting averages with Luke Harrison increasing his by 3.77.

Watched him at Redcar on Friday against Scunny. He wasn't far off the pace at all, just getting left behind a bit at the starts. He commented in a brief interview with Roy Clarke that he wasn't used to tracks with more dirt on ie Redcar as the tracks in the NDL tended to be slick. I'm sure he will soon sort out the required changes.

Agree technical tracks help riders master throttle control more so if riding them on a regular basis. Not sure if flat out causes more accidents though, Wolves v Belle Vue last week seemed to cause many riders big issues including a rare fall for master of throttle control Dan Bewley. Tight technical tracks usually lend a big home advantage, I remember whenever Comets visited the likes of Newcastle and Armadale I was just happy if none of the riders got injured. Would be interesting to know how many supporters of teams with tight technical tracks ie inside dog tracks would go for the same if there clubs were in a position to design a track from scratch.

Cheesed off i missed this meeting , should have ignored the awful weather forecast and made the journey. Well done all the riders and huge congratulations to Connor Bailey.

3 from 4 Neil

Speedway is about team strength 4 points from 9 reserve rides speaks for itself. Not surprisingly in our first season back established strong teams are a big challenge for us. Leicester were strong right through, they generally outgated the Comets and looked faster on track. Agree with what has already been stated it was pretty poor form booing young Sam Hagon who was a great guest for the Lion Cubs. The rainfall radar was bang on with the 16:45 rain forecast. When sitting in the back straight stand the quality and volume of the PA was not great. Struggled to hear most of Roy's announcements and interviews. Could be related to the stand height relative to speaker position ?. Some good racing again but a hard day at the office for the Comets. Ace Pijper finally gave the home fans something to cheer with his battling win from behind in heat 11 against Ashton Boughen and Dan Thomson at the 4th time of asking. Personally i thought Ashton should have been excluded in the first running as he came down on his own.

Cracking review thank you. The team seem to have attention to detail, continuous improvement and crowd satisfaction high on the list of main attributes. They have a strong desire to try to produce good racing without losing sight that the sport is nothing without its fan base so it has to be enjoyable and value for money. Personally i'm looking forward to watching the project develop in the coming seasons and delighted to have the sport back in Worky

Wow great of you to do that and thank you for views. I'm pretty sure the team have all the facilities you mention on the 'to do' list.

I don't think anyone should jump to conclusions about Kyle because he done a few laps round Worky after the meeting. 'Retiring' from competetive Speedway don't automatically mean a guy who has been riding Speedway bikes since he was a young boy doesn't still fancy a skid.

Crowd looked pretty decent today although I didn't do a rough head count.

The Chargers fully justified why I believe they are arguably the strongest team in the NDL. The solid team performance required from the Comets sadly didn't materialise, this was compounded by falls and mechanical failures which effectively contributed to 11 last places. Comets 12 points down after 5 heats and 14 down after 9 were never able to generate enough momentum to seriously look like overturning the deficit though we did manage to reduce it to 8 points after heat 11 following the bizarre disqualification of Alfie Bowtell for not wearing his race jacket, first time I've ever witnessed this one. Top performer for the Comets was Ace Piper with 12 from 5 and the young man is coming along nicely. Sam had a big off on turn 3 so it was good to see him walk back to the pits after being released from under the air fence. The Chargers were generally solid throughout, conversely none of their riders had a fall or a mechanical failure . The 3 heat leaders scored good points and were ably supported by Jacob Clouting and Jody Scott . The racing was generally entertaining with the Comets beaten by the better team on the day. Hope the supporters who made the journey from Oxford enjoyed their visit and had a safe journey home.

Poor planning that Neil lol

Good bit of natural watering late yesterday/ overnight will help Steve Lawson with pre meeting water requirements, sure he will be grateful for that. Weather forecast is good for this afternoon. The Chargers with a full team look the strongest in the league for me personally and will prove a stiff test even with a slightly weakened bottom end. Alfie Bowtell should be a very good guest for Jordan Jenkins after already impressing at Northside for Mildenhall. Bit disappointed Jordan is injured as I was looking forward to watching him following some strong performances in British Speedway over the last two seasons. Henry Atkins is another catching the eye at the minute putting in some very strong performances in the Championship. It has to be a solid team performance by the Comets if we are to take the points and go some way toward challenging for the aggregate bonus point when we visit Oxford for the return meeting. Its been a couple of weeks since most of the team have ridden competetive speedway and there is no substitute for time on the bike. UTC !

We were already down at Cambridge and were disappointed when the meeting was postponed as the rainfall radar sites generally showed Mildenhall to be on the very eastern edge of any precipitation until further on into the evening. May well have been spooked by the weather warning and the BBC who pretty much overhyped the potential weather forecast. There were a couple of heavier showers in Cambridge but nothing cataclysmic.

Thought Richard Lawson was quite superb tonight

Yeah that is more than strange, i'm with you hope he is indeed okay. I haven't seen him at Worky meetings either.

For some teams yes, i believe there are only 4 teams in the KO Cup.

Not enough fixtures for sure, Workington have staged 4 Home NDL fixtures out of the 7 scheduled. Only leaves 3 for the rest of the season and one of them is on June 24th.

It does sound rather implausible. Think a bit of retrospective covering up may be going on to try and mitigate against the likelyhood of disciplinary action.