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Hats off to the flag Marshall i say, had the numpty have got past him and to where kids and pensioners could have been it could have been tragic, i would do exactly the same tbf, a red flag is a red flag, its the same for everyone end of. Ask yourself this, would Cook have slowed if the public were on the track?? Of course he would!! So why didnt he in this instance?? Too many fans lick speedway riders ar5es to be able to see any wrong doing in my opinion. All this does is give the self certed doyens of this forum the chance to play their pathetic ‘my mothers bigger than your mother’ game. How anyone can defend Cookie and the course of actions he took is a joke, he could have caused serious injury to someone by his totally immature, irresponsible actions that night... to look for a scapegoat to pardon him at the same time makes you as bad as him!!. But lets blame the bloke trying to stop him eh.

Buster is not the messiah, he is the bloke chucking a ton of money down a dirty great big black hole for your entertainment. I would imagine that isn't much fun whilst being constantly criticised, having people constantly taking the piss, having people constantly giving negative opinions (never positive, I might add) and also enduring the worst possible luck with riders getting injured.

You're right, although my understanding is that this wasn't just Rob Godfrey. The only reason I can see for the withdrawal of riders is spite provoked by vicious jealousy. BSPA members (or some of them) simply don't change I can just imagine certain Championship promoters - faced with near wall to wall criticism, empty terraces, an underperforming team and mounting losses - viewing as absolutely intolerable the equally wall to wall praise that Isle of Wight receive, the situation then being made worse by them landing a unique meeting - and which of us wouldn't want to see a similar event at our track - backed by one of the worlds biggest speedway sponsors. The worst thing, though, is that this isn't just about Isle of Wight. What the BSPA should have done is pulled out all the stops for this meeting, making riders available, waiving guest fees and even possibly assisting with costs. We are talking about the involvement of a company that apparently provide several million euros sponsorship in Poland and the chance of making a favourable impression and getting them involved over here was an opportunity not to be missed. Instead they did precisely the opposite and tried to sabotage the event. Shameful isn't the word. My understanding is that NICE were impressed with what they saw, but I am sure we can guess at what they thought of the decision to withdraw riders literally a couple of days before the meeting took place without adequate reasoning and by a senior member of the BSPA at that. I would agree with your view about Rob Godfrey, and not for the first time he has shown that he is unfit to be a member of the organisation that promotes our sport in this country.

Start at the bottom, irrespective of age. NO rider should ride in all 3 divisions as it seems a big step up for 2 divisions never mind 3. If they are good enough for the top division then they are too good for the bottom division.

None of those lads were a reserve in the championship at the time ( too young ). Try to explain that situation to a new speedway fan, " he's good enough to ride in the league above but only good enough to be classed as a reserve in the Academy league ?" Simply not right. if a rider is in a championship side then surely he should be restricted to the top 5 in the NL? and while I'm having a rant, no rider should be riding in all 3 divisions, simply idiotic and impossible to explain. The NL is a good product but it needs to look at these things and not go the way of the other two divisions, with guests, R/R etc . items for El Supremo Mr. Pipe to sort out in the winter?

Meeting Update: Redcar V Newcastle We have had rain overnight and this morning but it’s currently dry and sunny here at the MPA so we are all systems go for tonight. We will keep you updated if anything changes.

Thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Birmingham , as did my dad - arrived nice and early and had a decent meal in the Weatherspoons , weather was decent - liked the rider introduction and loved the fact that the meeting was conducted at a brisk pace ( wish all tracks would take note ) no messing around from the riders , ref got on with it and to be finished by 9.15 was spot on , thought Shanes , Garrity , Castagna where excellent - Eastbourne frankly summed up by Kennett not winning a race all evening , nice friendly crowd , ice cream went down well - the only down side was the Highways agency deciding to make 4 lanes on the M6 into 1 at 11pm delaying the trip back by 45 mins but that was a small issue - decent nights entertainment and a ground I will visit again - solid 8/10 Chris

It was entertaining though

Sorry, I was the one who brought the 'blue sky' up. Was just an example on how ridiculous it is to defend Cook. Next time I'll use a speedway related one.

It's pretty grey, miserable and gloomy in South Bank...oh and the weather's improving too.

If you don't have Capricornia its worth sampling. For me its up there with bsm and e&s&m. Haven't thus far bothered with FT and OverflowT, unfortunately I don't have a spare three hundred quid, although I have all the regular issue stuff so loads of overlap anyway. Ahem, apologies to others, er back on topic yeah I do follow speedway

He’s not top of the averages, Batchelor has higher average than him! Doyle currently averaging 8.32 this season which is poor for a rider of his standard.

Ah! The days of 'World of Sport'...personally I feel that when ITV cancelled the programme it was one of many issues that started the decline of speedway in this country and was no longer regarded as a high profile sport that it once enjoyed during it's last "Golden Era' of the 1970's early 80's.

No one will ever replace Adams as my favourite Robin of all time. But Doyley led us to the title in 2017 with a top performance in the away leg at Wolves. This year he has won us numerous points. He's doing a top job in my eyes and long may it continue.

What a bummer, was looking forward to the witches to bring the Poole fans back to reality with a solid away win

Think Connor Bailey has a good future in the sport ,improving quickly.

Not a happy evening for the Warriors but we still saw some entertaining action. Given the weather all the riders put on a great show. I met a number of Mildenhall fans who enjoyed seeing their side claim four points but you could tell they would have been happier if Warriors had been at full strength. Thank you to Barry Bishop for encouraging me to get myself to the meeting, with his enthusiasm the Warriors deserve all the success possible and I am looking forward to seeing the Belle Vue Colts in twelve days time against a hopefully fitter Warriors side. Best wishes to Georgie, Danno and Scott, I hope they all recover soon from their injuries.

Many years ago we had the Berger Grand Prix. It was driven by Ole Olsen's passion for a Grand Prix style World Championship. Attendances were poor and it was a bit of a failure Ok I'll concede that the World Championship was a bit stale but attendances were good Speedway Riders were recognised and it was the UK's most popular Summer Sport. Speedway is now a pan European sport but the consequences are British and European Speedway have little in common like the EU !! Unfortunately tracks don't operate of a weekend, many riders don't need British Speedway and creedy promoters cannot see past a star rider that brings in 500 elderly die hards week in week out who are prepared to pay obscene amounts to watch very little mediocre racing. Sadly the sport will die unless a new approach is investigated.

Isle of Wight. The most praised team in the country.. I'm sorry, that says it all.

Surely footage of the 1976 Grand Prix is out there, somewhere. It was a great tournament. Obviously it shrunk in size after the initial two years. Each top flight track staged a round. In 1978 and '79 British riders' scores also counted towards British World Championship qualification. In 1980 I think there were just four rounds. But the summer of '76 was a special year, sponsors the Daily Mirror having reports of each meeting the following day. I even filled in the score grid published in Speedway Star for the 1977 rounds. Magic days.

I actually think the Wolves septet looks the strongest of all on paper even with another change in riding order come September. Unfortunately though meetings aren't run on paper.

What's the weather like at the minute down there? Forecast not great, but might get away with it?

Its hard to say really. TR and JC were absolute class and that made it tough for Leigh to win the world title. But at the same time do you ever remember him having incidents like Nicki P where he was hard on people and got away with it. Maybe he was lacking a bit in that way. But what a legend!!! Seeing him every week at the Abbey was an absolute treat.

At least with Proctor we had three potential heat leaders three reserves and RR as a second string now we have two heat leaders, one second string and four reserves so we are weaker, but that doesn't matter because Leicester are stronger

Ah... I am afraid that when I said "us all" I meant those in attendance on Thursday who saw some really entertaining action, heart stopping moments, and really a night of close racing, elbowsm, track craft and throttle control, all on a level playing field for each rider. From my perspective, I (Martin and I) will continue to work with NICE on this project and will attend a washup meeting with them soon along with discussions on what comes next. I see this as being format as a great opportunity for the sport and while there is much work to be done, in my view it has the potential longevity and that warrants further exploration in a controlled way. Furthermore, these next stage experiments must have some kind of control and reference points so that a comparison can be made. This means it cannot be simple as to put an entire league on the engines.. but I do have ideas that I will be discussing with NICE over the coming weeks about how we can take it further and then present that final idea to the higher authority. However, as a standalone event we will be doing it again for sure and at least once.......