SteveEvans

Just a wild stab in the dark but would Jepsen Jensen or big Pawlicki be worth a punt? Hard to see where we will get a proper #1...

Nicki is a fine rider, but he has made his bed over a career littered with controversial riding. Its quite possible he gets harshly judged sometimes based on the past but that's the consequences of his own actions. He's worthy of world #3 and rode some fantastic GP's this year. He also somehow attracts trouble and revels in his bad boy role. He reminds me of the kid at school who was always in the headmasters office connected with trouble, whether he caused it directly or not. Greg and Masters did wrong and apologized for their actions. Correct me if i'm wrong but has Nicki ever apologized for his? Once? I've never been knocked off a bike at 70mph, or had my line taken away so I can't have reality on how these guys feel in the heat of the moment. Given how many crashes occur in speedway its almost amazing we don't have more brawls. And being professionals, Greg and Nicki, at least for now, have moved past their issues its seems. The most fascinating part of this thread though isn't Nicki or Greg, its posters who never have and never will ride a bike talking like experts about riders crashing, jumping off the bike, etc, and their actions after. How can you possibly judge when you've never done this? BSF comedy at its finest!!

Understand your frustrations but 40,000+ fans it isn't going anywhere!

I think sadly the urge from the modern day promoter is a less is more approach. I guess it is deemed Sky and sponsor go further when you have less meetings. While you often have to economize In running any business there also is the need to create expansion in some other area. Promoters of the past worked out how to put on weekly meetings that were financially viable, whether in the league or not. This is now mostly a lost art.

I think back then the GP riders wanted all the meetings they could, so BLC was deemed to be taking matches away and they wanted to be included. Now the pendulum has swung very heavily back the other way and the top riders simply don't want to race more than the minimum.

This would be the first step and could be used to gauge more accurately the difference between leagues. As stated above the BLC was a great concept but it blew it on the EL teams were on too high an average. Whats in it for EL clubs? Variety and more than 14 fixtures for a start. Perhaps given the early end to the season for those who don't make the play offs you could perhaps run it with the EL and PL teams that don't make the play offs, that would be 11 teams. EL clubs. A bit of fun and the chance for all to win something with everyone starting even surely cant be an unsellable concept?

I think something needs to be done to freshen up the UK league format and this could be it. It would only work though if the EL teams conformed to a PL points limit for this competition. Given that the bigger name riders seem to not want more fixtures, that in itself would essentially be the first step. I think a competition like this would be a great way to inject some fun and life into UK speedway.

Yes and no. It depends on who is available. We've always put assets first and that is when we have had a true #1. For the first time we don't have one. No one is safe and the team should be built top down.

This is correct and a fact of the system. The current format has most in 1-5 averaging 7.5 - 5.5. Therefore, signing PL riders on a converted average of 4.5-5 essentially gaurentees improvement. The rider on the lower average if both are equal is the way to go as you have more points for other options. Its time for Wolves to get away from their loyalty strategy and completely roll the dice. Even if means up to 7 new faces!

This looks great and logical. How did you weight the averages?

That's living alright!

Isn't Chris Holder not doing Aussie Nationals by choice Lisa? Nothing wrong with that in my book by the way, but kind of contradicts your point a tad perhaps? Nicki doing the Danish league (which I incidentally saw a meeting with him in last June and was impressed by the standard) is Wednesday nights only. The complaint of Tai and others is the modern day EL schedule of 5 race nights just doesn't work. The Elite League needs to find a way to include these riders. Whether that be a 1 or 2 nights a week league (you could run the same number of meetings with no double up riders missing if EL was Monday and Wednesdays only), or allow riders to run lesser schedule (sharing a position or squad) this should be looked into.

It probably more solvent this year as I would assume its 25% more Sky money (2 less teams) for 28% less home meetings. So the Sky subsidy goes further. Of course crowd levels would be a whole other subject.

The real issue isn't a couple of riders getting into NL, its the amount of European riders. The squeeze put on Australians and Americans wont create a single job for british riders. Its the law of the land that European riders can race in the UK and look at some clubs, especially PL. A cheap option.

AJ is signed for Lakeside and their press release also talks about a fast track draft. I'm not expecting any major changes this year.

I think it has, from various countries! Greg, Nicki, Crump, Holder, Tai, etc etc etc all got their career foundation in the UK. Nowadays it is more a stepping stone as the EL has declined by its own decision and out of date logistics.

When was it not? There has always been a points limit and these days the restrictions seem worst than ever. Going back to my first year, 86, Oxford won everything, next year they offloaded Simon Wigg to Hackney to stay within points limit. Poole have lost riders in more recent years like Bjarne and Davey Watt when they were both in their prime. Wolves had to give up PK after we won the title in 2009. For the first time I recall Wolves have no true #1. Can you tell me where next years #1 will realistically come from? I can never recall being in this position since Sigalos got injured in 84. We've been the victim of this system way more than the beneficiary. So, if its our turn to reap the benefit, so be it. Its like a pension scheme, we've paid into it, now lets get something back!

Isnt that the way its always been? Whats harder now is there are not an abundance of top riders willing to race in the UK. Wolves need a #1 so likely that rider will have to come from someone else - over the years we've given other teams the likes of Sam, Ronnie, PK, Mikael. Now its our time to have the system support us. I would also say now that with the silly race format and restrictions like rolling averages (brought in to thwart the likes of Poole and Coventry doing short term average manipulations but at the penalty of all), it is even harder now to build a winning team or change a losing one.

Steve, Post #264 (posted overnight for me) brings the engine up AGAIN so hence I made my post. There is so much here that you or I don't know. It is correct that he was talked into riding for the Wolves last year. That for me is the biggest red flag. We also know the schedule got on top of him. The point of equipment is assumption - it could have some merit but my point is we have no idea! The world champion should surely be able to do well despite which of his engines he is using. Also if the club were on top of this they shouldn't have allowed him to use motors that weren't fresh and on top of their game. Steve, I understand your frustration, you saw it most meetings, but I think the engine theory isn't as big a factor as you believe. That's all!

Stevebrum, you keep mentioning this 'fastest engine' and why didn't he bring it over for Wolves meetings. The insinuation to me appears to be that his British engines were therefore crap. That's a massive assumption. Riders of course have multiple bikes, engines and set ups in all countries. We don't know truly how much faster this best engine was. We don't know where he used it. Might have just been for GPs and it was brought to the British Final to test ahead of Cardiff, perhaps. We don't know how often this engine needs maintenance, but its obviously impractical to use this one engine everywhere. We don't know if a sponsor places restrictions on the use of equipment. We don't know the money that has gone into this engine to make it perform at this level We don't know given the cost of this engine and money to be made in Britain that it is even financially viable to use this in British League We don't know if this engine has a magic unicorn in it which would transform me into a GP winner. You only have one tiny piece of information. For me, on a practical and business sense, why would I use such an engine in the lowest paying league when I'm chasing a World Championship? I would imagine any world contending riders best engine and worst engine category would be a bit like going to the Playboy mansion and having to chose the top 6 best looking girls. 6 wouldn't be a ropy boiler!

PK told me last Friday night he is racing in 2016!

Its a mystery. And a shame for him and us. You just don't want to see your star struggle and its definitely frustrating. Some things within speedway have an explanation some don't. This one is a definite gray area.

As I said above, none of us know! But it isn't down to a supposed super engine he used in the British Final! His Midlands Today interview yesterday certainly gives an overview of the big picture. Not a direct answer to the issue but certainly enlightening.

Pages and pages of assumptions and know best on why Tai's UK form in 2014 was poor. Sorry guys. none of you really know including me. I can tell you the logistics to race speedway in three leagues plus SGP is mind boggling. I also find the view that a rider chasing the world championship should use his best engine in the British League quite amusing, as well as the assumption that this means his British engines were therefore substandard. I love the BSF! Did we sign the 2016 team yet?

Steve, how do you know it took 2 rides to get the set up sorted? Were you in the pits with him? What tire pressure and sprocket size was he running? The British Final is a much easier meeting than an EL match - in an EL match you are likely racing 8 heatleaders in 5 races these days. The British Final has about 3 heatleaders in 5 heats before the final. Looking at Tai's scores in 2014 he had some high scores and some atrocious ones. I was actually at one of the atrocious ones versus Poole where his points score did not reflect the effort I observed. All this nonsense about 'bringing my best engine' is often misconstrued to the fact that what he was riding in the UK was junk. Peter Johns doesn't produce junk and around Monmore, a technical track, a 'best engine' isn't going to make someone like Tai suddenly two seconds a heat faster. My personal opinion (which is nothing more than that) is that Tai, being a world champion at a young age simply thought he was indestructible when he won the title and took on a schedule beyond what could be handled, especially when you throw in all of his PR appearances and charity work. A naïve mistake which backfired and hit us hard as a team. This year his approach to his race schedule (and his consistently put points on the board in the GPs) is very Hancockish and the result shows. This fixation on a rider having a 'super engine' and 'junk engines' in the UK is something that could be put together in the mind of anyone on the terraces hearing what they want and having nothing factual from the rider to go off. This is over a year ago and Tai isn't on our 2016 radar anyway I would imagine so I also am baffled at why this takes up pages of this thread.