lucifer sam

Yup. Ruled changed a few years ago. All in the rulebook.

Jordan Palin did rather well against older riders at the Isle Of Wight on Tuesday. I'm sure he'll be fine after a whole year with Belle Vue Colts in the National League. Problem with Jedd is that option was not available to him and also that his average cannot go below 4.00. It was into the deep end.

I reckon it's a 6-hour journey on a normal day - probably a 7-hour journey on a Good Friday. Poole should ride on Easter Monday instead.

I thought Premiership fixtures were supposed to take place on Mondays and Thursdays?

Going by the above, what are you predicting? A 50-40 win for Scorpions?

When I spoke to Peter Duncan, he reckoned King Cinder deserved a release, due to the fame achieved by Lesley Manville, his former girlfriend. King Cinder also featured well-known EastEnders actor Tony Caunter (Roy Evans).

The other point around this era is that Graham Warren was the dominant force in 1950, but fell in one race at Wembley while chasing Freddie Williams. He won his other four outings to finish in third place on 12 points. Given a GP series, the favourite to win would have been Warren. The old style World Championship and current GP series were/are BOTH very tough to win. But, under the GP system, the top rider in the world is more likely to end up as the World Champion. Although the cream normally rose to the top in World Finals as well. Both systems have their merits. I miss the trips to the old one-off finals, but at the same time, I appreciate being able to see a number of Grand Prix rounds on the TV throughout the year.

Jack Young was top qualifier in 1950 (i.e one year before he was World Champion), which suggests he would have won the 1950 Grand Prix challenge and therefore qualified for the 1951 Grand Prix series. PS Just checked there are currently 64 riders in the international stages of qualifying. And many countries use the results of national championships, etc, to determine who goes into the qualifiers. It's not a closed shop. If you're good enough, you get into it pretty quickly, as Emil did at the age of 19.

Thought the racing was decent enough - especially from Heat 9 onwards. Not the complete classic of the previous week, but still plenty of good racing. By my reckoning, Josh Auty gated on 3+1 but scored 13+1, plus there was Jake snatching Heat 11 at the death, while the proverbial blanket could be thrown over three and four riders respectively in Heats 12 and 14. The later race had a thrilling conclusion, even if it didn't go Scunny's way. Believe me, the meeting was around 10 times better than the bore-fest that I witnessed at Leicester eight days previously. I was also grateful that the whole meeting at Scunny was completed in 70 minutes - the wind was freezing. Track grading would have had a negative effect on the racing, and also you can't keep people hanging around when it's that cold - you have to consider the spectators.

I dunno. Zmarzlik doesn't seem quite as good under pressure as Tai. I tip Woffy for No 4 this year. I realise he'd already won in 2013 and 2015, but IMO Woffy seemed to step up a further gear last year. He's going to be hard to live with for the next few years.

I've had my run-ins with Tsunami on the political threads, but you can't question his speedway credentials. Involved in one of the most successful spells of Newcastle Speedway and then running some invaluable training schools.

Very poor team - no Woffinden, no Hancock, no Doyle, no Lindgren - I presume they want Poland to win

Nah, just the two

Ah, I have seen numbers in those boxes - thanks for clarifying. I reckon you could redesign that spreadsheet in no time at all to include the capacity for race times. Which all comes back to the SCB not wanting them in their official results. Up until now, there's always been the Speedway Star to fall back on. But now the Speedway Star are using the official scorecards for their results, maybe it's time for a re-think from the SCB.

Out of interest, why is that provision not included? I like your spreadsheets - which are very clean. But there's a very clear space where the heat time could go if necessary (under the heat number). Why were you asked to design the spreadsheet without this key provision? It's hard to see where the SCB were going with this - why purposely omit a key detail to a meeting?