cowboy cookie returns? 747 Posted September 11, 2021 Just a thought to help the sport move forward, add a touch of supporter interaction & add some much needed suspense. Each club runs a competition on their website for two supporters to experience an interactive evening. The winning supporters have to arrive at the stadium 2 hours before the meeting. They are then escorted to the new VIP caravan that each track must have. Inside there are 14 riders all dressed in black leathers with BSPL approved paper bags over their heads. The 2 winning supporters then toss a coin to decide who is the representing the 'home' team & who represents the 'away' team. After this another coin is tossed to decide who has first pick of the riders.. They then take it in turns to pick a rider until each team has 7 riders. At this point the riders are asked to remove the paper bags to reveal to the excided winners who they are. At this point all those who know the true identity of the riders have to sign the official because this is speedway document that states they can never reveal the rider identities. After the big reveal the away team can demand a rider swap under the 'in the interest of speedway' rule. Once both teams have been confirmed with the officials the supporters then get to team manage for the evening. At this point the riders then put on their helmets & the turnstiles are opened. These cannot be removed until the last supporter has left the stadium after the meeting. The teams are then introduced as the home team & riders are introduced a rider 1 etc the same happens with the away team. As the riders are all in black leathers the only identity they have is a race jacket & helmet colour. I can only imagine the excitement of those spectators on the terrace not knowing who is representing 'their' team The keys positive points to this is that it removes the doubling up issues there will be no guests or rider replacement as the BSPL will always send 14 fit riders to each track for team selection. As the teams are simply known as the home & away team it's possible to have a league with more teams taking part than available venues. At the end of the season the prize for winning the various competitions are just simply returned to the BSPL office. Another benefit of this new operating model is there are no points limit issues as each team selection is based on pure luck. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ray Stadia 1,071 Posted September 16, 2021 A lot of thought has gone into your solution! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Deano 1,318 Posted September 16, 2021 Perhaps all riders compete under the pseudonym “Dave”. That would give a name for the announcer to read out pre-race. AND ..... yes AND...... imagine the suspense as everyone waits for the heat 15 nominated heat! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lefty 1,266 Posted September 16, 2021 52 minutes ago, Deano said: Perhaps all riders compete under the pseudonym “Dave”. That would give a name for the announcer to read out pre-race. AND ..... yes AND...... imagine the suspense as everyone waits for the heat 15 nominated heat! Don't you mean Rodney'? 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites