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BWD was awful tonight and did not seem at all interested in racing. I have not seen him for a few years but looks like has put quite a bit of weight, his bikes looked poor as had bright covers but then using Peterborough mudguards from his last season over here . As expected Congrave is very out of depth reminded me of Jedd List that came over for Scunthorpe,Newcastle would be better off with a NL rider. It was good to see Paul Starke putting up a little fight

Arthur Sissis was the rider that Sheffield had and like Darcy he is a natural on a motorcycle and could have been very good at Speedway if he had been more focused. Both him and his family knew he was good but he always has road racing as well as Speedway and at one point was tipped to be a Moto GP rider but is now racing in the Aussie Superbike series. His Speedway equipment was never that good quality and having Sheffield as a home track shows his lack of speed and then he was a bit unlucky picking up few injuries

It is my understanding that some of the GPs will be shown live on Eurosport in the UK along with highlights and other features on Quest. This is being done for two reasons firstly they know it is very unlikely that significant numbers would sign up to watch online using Discovery Player that is confirmed by the amount of subscribers that Premier Sport get for their Polish & Swedish league coverage. Secondly from a technical perspective Eurosport that is broadcast on Sky is on a satellite transponder that is on a tight UK footprint so is very difficult to receive outside of UK ,where as the Polish and most European versions can be viewed pretty much anywhere in Europe. There will of course people that will do screen Scraping to re-broadcast on the internet and I fully expect the BSN Championship coverage will done as well

Not sure if Josh is having second thoughts now about returning to racing as he didn’t seem very committed on Saturday and he wasn’t riding his usual lines around Leicester

It’s not just Danish riders that Birmingham are having a problem signing due to fixture clashes. They had another rider lined up to return to the UK for them but the deal was stopped by authorities due to him missing a number of weekend away fixtures due to meetings abroad.

Birmingham have their team it’s just waiting for them to announce it or will it just be a case of come to Leicester on Saturday to find out ? Some of these issues have been caused by a rider having their arm twisted to ride for Birmingham as No1 then trying to back track saying if you can get anyone else I will drop out as they are not fussed about starting in Championship in 2022

The same Plymouth team that tried to get a Birmingham signing to change his mind to ride at Plymouth when Eddie K said it wasn’t going to work out for him

I did find it strange last week that he was keen to practice at Leicester and had new bikes built here in the UK so this is probably the reason why

Brady Kurtz as Number 1 ?

If a young Australian wonder if it may be Fraser Bowes although if he wanted to do the UK would have thought Glasgow would have signed him up. I noticed he has been out in Spain training with Lublin so assume part of their squad in 2022

They have some good knowledgeable Speedway people involved there and I am sure that they will not let Mr Rogers pull the wool over their eyes. Dave Rowe is a good honest guy who loves his Speedway and is master of stats of Speedway and I met Gary Drinkwater and his wife Lorraine when they were involved at Coventry. Nigel Tolley is a very astute businessman and has made himself very good money by sound investments so don’t see him getting involved at Birmingham without doing his due diligence

It would be excellent if British racing can get Tai back in the league for the full season and hopefully additional sponsorship can be found to make the deal happen. Tai and his family are having a new custom built house built at present in the UK as his daughter is due to start school in September so he will be UK based when he can. My understanding is that Tai did let Wolves know of his intentions to return to UK and what sort of deal he was looking for, They decided against it as did another Northern PL club but BV believe that they can raise some additional sponsorship and that he would attract extra fans . BV fits in well to Tai’s schedule as can fly in on Monday from Wrocław his UK full time mechanic is based in North Derbyshire so close by as well

I understand it was the opportunity to ride at the Leicester practice sessions that convinced Vinnie and his dad to join Leicester for 2022. With regards to other riders on that low average Leicester will have two 3point reserves to start the season and there really isn’t many more that are up to NL standard yet From the clubs point of view I do remember Stewart Dickson seeing him ride at Leicester for Kent and being very impressed with his raw talent and hopefully with some guidance can become more settled if not the Air Fence repair company are going to have a busy year from Leicester meetings also it has to be remembered if he is found to be out of his depth then Max James becomes an option in July

There still is a question though whether signing for a NL club does this make the rider an asset of that club or not especially when the rider is U16 like Ben Trigger,Max James and Max Perry I know there was some confusion last season with a couple of riders as the NL is considered non professional training league and previously riders like Charles Wright, Craig Cook when they rode NL they only became an asset of a club when they rode CL or PL

I don’t think that will be the last time that Lions fans will be getting confused which Max it is in 2022

If Anders Rowe was to be the final rider for the Lions I would consider this to be a good signing for the available average. Not many would know this but both in 2020 and 2021 Anders was a regular at Leicester winter training sessions sometimes riding in awful wet conditions all to improve his skills and I am sure Anders will be will back practicing at Leicester this winter no matter where he rides in 2022. He always has immaculate equipment and takes his racing very seriously with long term injuries hampering his progress in 2021 along with long drives up to Redcar & Edinburgh for home meetings probably not helping as well when not 100% fit. Another thing to take into consideration is Anders relationship with Nick Morris only a few seasons ago Ander’s and his dad Del were full time mechanics for Nick and Mozza gave Anders a lot of advice when he was starting out riding Speedway so if Anders was to come to Leicester I am confident that Nick would be able to get the best out of him.

I wonder if Glasgow have tempted former Leicester manager Norrie Allen up to Scotland with a years supply of cigarettes and as much coffee as he can drink

Ryan Douglas has not fallen out with the Leicester promotion in any way he has signed for Rawicz in Poland and the majority of their meetings are going to be on Saturday nights . Ryan has been considering his options whether to do UK Premiership,Sweden and Poland or UK both leagues and Poland. New signings will be announced this week along with the return of some former Lions from previous seasons

Most international riders do Poland on a Sunday then take a leisurely drive up to Northern Poland catch the ferry Monday to arrive Tuesday morning then get back to port to sail back to Poland Tuesday night. The mechanics actually like this as they all get together on the overnight ferries and have a few beers and chill out . The riders depending on other commitments may fly from Poland to Sweden on a Tuesday morning. If the rider is in the Friday match on a non GP weekend they often travel out to Sweden earlier and have a few days down time both Magic and Robert Lambert did this regularly

If these meetings get rained off again then what are Poole & Glasgow fans thoughts about a straight one off winner takes all final at a neutral track like Leicester on Saturday 6th November

As it stands at the minute Leicester are planning on running a NL team in 2022 and have already got two good 15 year olds lined up as their reserves. With regards to the Lions team planning is very well advanced with some fans favourites returning to the club, along with an Australian moving from a Northern track

I wonder if Poole may decide to not run their meeting on Wednesday now which would then mean they could have the second leg of their semi which can happen if they dont pick Leicester. They could also decide to pick Glasgow if want to run this Wednesday

The Leicester club were not told until 5pm that Basso was not riding and were told that he was ill that is what I assume would go on the referees report. Maybe Phil Griffin pointed out to Middlo that he would now be under a compulsory ban hence why a rib injury has been reported today.

I understand that Basso has a non Speedway related illness and as no medical note was provided he now is suspended for 7 days

Unfortunately that does not sound good for the future past 2023, I don’t like the working about keeping the events arena and conference facilities I have a feeling they mean just the indoors section and the speedway track and grandstand will become housing and retail. If this work all goes ahead then this will rule out the showground being used for large events like Truckfest,The motorcycles events and big camping events