martinmauger
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Posts posted by martinmauger
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Well done to all that we had a meeting to watch, all the very best to young Thompson. Struck me that the Hellstrom-Bangs exclusion was very simlar to Madsen / Holder incedent at recent GP, as in defo slight contact tho both fallers could possibly (probably ?) have saved it, except in the GP the rider who came off, Holder, was excluded....
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Well, duh: did TM's ex riding / non-riding not say to their riders "nice to win 'semi' but main thing is to make the final: so no lasts, if 2nd & 3rd just defend your position" ?, obv not in some cases. Czechs blew it, Aussies almost did. Still, we all go after it again Fri & Sat nites: GO BRITS !...
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Thought the issue Skywalker Luke (not taking the mick, honest) had in the race with Lambert & the 2 Edinbugh riders (can't remember exactly or be bothered to check) was that Lambert left him a tad exposed so the 2 Monarchs effectivley 'beat him up'. It happens; 'you give me shove today, I'll give you a shove tomorow, long as we all survive to ride another day, then we go after it again'. IMO he'll learn more from such awkward on-track incedents, & going to Poland with GB U19 squad where gotta say he did blooming well, than beating NL-level riders with relative ease, well some of them. Said before, but Luke ain't half bad at speedway, at all, often need to check the number on his back to be sure it isn't the more experienced Ablitt one is watching. But young Luke has got 'it', that is the ability to race, not only ride, speedway very well, you only need to watch him for a lap, how much of 'it' he has, time will tell & it will be interesting to follow his progress, but he has defo got 'it'.
Good luck to him I say
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Yes, it was good to see the NL riders doing laps of honour & ewere genuinely pleased following good races, whether they won or not, great to see....
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2 hours ago, chunky said:That surprises me! Funny thing is, while we both used to be Thursday night tracks, I've actually been there a helluva lot. Wasn't always great racing, but I like the size and shape of the place.
Saw Moggo have a bad one there (actually, seen him do that at most tracks) when he went through the fence on the home straight.
Bit of a distance from Hull: not always had money or nowadays the time. Or a team to support
, it means waaay more, trust me. In early days of away coach trips folks wouldn't let me go such relatively far off places as they didn't want me returning at 'stupid o clock' & waking everyone up. I got away with trips to likes of Halifax home 11.30pm-ish, Belle Vue (told 'em it wasn't actually in Manchester, bit nearer !) back 12 - 1am-ish, same with Birmingham, Coventry & Cradley 'they're outside of the cities, in villages, so also quite a bit nearer (!)' 
so got away with 2.30am-ish returns 'due to roadworks, honest' - almost every Saturday away trip (!), but Swindon away & a 4am return, waking up the dog & therefore everyone else didn't make me at all popular
. Anyhoo good on Ippo, still sucessfully running speedway
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Never been to 'Ippo', thing is they've (pretty much) always come to the tapes since 1970 (I think it was), so must be 'doing something right' (!). Good luck to the Witches I say....
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Obv v bad news for Doyle, Ipswich & his other teams (can't be bothered to check), good call there ^^ but pretty sure Scotty don't want / or can fit a full-time Prem League spot...
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Obv terrible news what with all the good progress going on at Worky, Northside. Reccomend having a chat with Scunny as they sadly suffered similar issues a few years ago but solved them, now (finger crossed hopefully) no more such problems at the EWR, hope Worky can get secure also.....
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Jumping in late (too late?), I'd go with John Cook, apologies if already mentioned. In 1980 he stuggled badly at Hull on a 4v JAWA known for tricky handling, he moved to Ipswich as part of the deal taking Dennis Sigalos to Foxhall (A HUGE loss to Hull BTW) with Billy Sanders coming to Hull (along wth a cash adjustment), where Billy became quite popular. But from 1981, riding a track he seemed to prefer more on a Weslake he defo preferred more, Cookie became the all-action 'Cowboy' that we all loved to watch, never a dull moment when he was on track....
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On 4/5/2024 at 8:58 PM, WembleyLion said:My all time favourite rider.
I was fortunate enough to be able to be in attendance to watch three of his finest individual achievements:-
1975 British Champion at Coventry.
1975 Third place in the World Final at Wembley after a run off with the great Ivan Mauger.
1979 Winner of the BLRC at Belle Vue following a truly memorable race with Bruce Penhall.
Tiger was a fantastic team man as well and led the Witches to back to back titles in 1975 and 1976.
A true legend of the sport.
My condolences to Chris and all the Louis family.
R.I.P. Tiger Louis!
Also former Hull, Boulevard track record holder 74.2 secs, 7 July 1971, the Tiger never worried about the Hull track being a tad narrow, squarish or bumpy, he just rode it. I often wondered how much more he may have achieved had he been not a relative late starter in speedway at 28 / 29, as in addition to Ipswich he was also more than capable rider in the later years of his career at Halifax then at King's Lynn & was still pulling on an England body colour & scoring well at WTC level in his 40's.
Condolences to the Louis family, RIP John 'Tiger' Louis, a true England great....
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5 hours ago, Woke23 said:I think you lot are getting in a disagreement when both are right.
Yes, comets knew what they were doing when signing a female rider. They knew it would bring good publicity and they've acted on that too. The celina merch at the practice session was the only merch advertised over the speakers. Why? Because they know it'll bring in strong custom.
However, they wouldn't have signed her if they didn't think she was good enough. She's obviously shown good signs and that coupled with being female helped seal the deal for comets.
Whether it will turn out to be good or not is still to be seen. She's came in as a 4 pt average but so far she's clearly been the worse rider of the team. Young Sam has shown much more both home and away in the first two games.
Ok thanks, as with every rider good luck to her....
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Do we know for sure that Worky actively saught out Fraulein Libmann, for publicity etc, or was it a case of "well she's available, we need to build an asset base, let's give her a try", serious question. In the pics shown she is with other riders at some point, not just on her own say miles behind, but it depends where she finishes in races. Hoped to see her her at Scunny last Friday, didn' t happen of course & I couldn't make it anyway, but agree, as with each & every other rider; give her so many meetings then look at a replacement if she isn't scoring or at least improving....
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On 3/16/2024 at 12:23 PM, Neila said:Just after 1pm clouds building up, weather radar shows rain coming over Irish sea from IOM towards Cumbria, will probably rain by 15.00 . Must have been 8-10 inch of rain in the last week in worky, track access roads and parking under water on Thursday, no drying this early in the year, so virtually impossible to prepare the track, and parking area could turn into a bog, how would spectators feel about that. And the damage would take weeks to repair . A hard but sensible decision made IMO
In that case: good call. I recall a British F1GP at Silverstone, 1994 / 95? can't be bothered to check, was held at Easter instead of July - and it rained, a lot. Spectators spent all day having cars towed out of quagmire car park, didn't sound fun, Worky don't need that for 1st 'Division 2' level meeting....
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3 hours ago, customhouseregular said:A tad confusing maybe. Every team meets every other team nome and away. Top team at end of season wins the league. The way it always was for many a long year.
Unless more tracks open & any more close (obv hope not) this may be the only option, add KOC, maybe 4's & pairs.....
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On 3/1/2024 at 3:48 PM, naffer said:The campaign group have used the term "coats for goalposts" in their vision for getting speedway back again .
on a YouTube clip after the recent enquiry victory Jeff Davies stated that the back straight stand would be refurbished along the back straight terracing giving a 3,000 capacity.
A structural survey would be undertaken on the main grandstand to ascertain what's to be done with that .
Fingers crossed it happens
yes I know for the doom and gloom merchants we don't own it they can land bank it etc
Up the bees
Think the speedway version is: 'a track in a field with a fence around it & a few Potakabins', bit like when Scunny first started up in 2005/2006. Still, little acorns & all that....
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Remakable performance by Carter, he certainly had a lot of courage on that day. And, wasn't it 'just' his right leg that was broken, though it was plenty enough, think he crashed heavily again the next year so didn't make the '85 World Final on his home track Bradford (which must have been - literally gutting) & don't think his leg ever did heal fully.....
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8 hours ago, Neila said:Think Celina is riding in a separate ladies section of the Ben fund meeting, along with the young kids section
Good idea; get some competive laps in at Worky in front of a crowd, before the serious league stuff starts....
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Ok thanks, interesting stuff, fingers still crossed....
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Think the Ben Fund meeting would also be a good 'test the water meeting' for Celina Liebmann in addition the Peter Craven Memorial at Belle Vue. She will need to jump at in the deep end & race the top riders sooner or later but think a meeting of this kind, on her home track, would be a good, better ?, 'test the water' meeting for her. As with everyone, I'm looking forward to seeing her race, good luck to her hope she goes well....
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Query re Brandon Stadium, just a thought: what condition is the back straight stand in ? There's been lots of talk on needing to rebuild or at least refurbish the main, home straight stand, but don't recall the back straight stand being mentioned. I mean if Coventry are able to resume at Brandon, I wonderded whether the back straight stand could be used, temporarily moving the startline to the other side. Obv still long way to go but it's looking more positive, like I said was just a thought....
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Could well be a tad out of her depth in this meeting, but won't know if she don't try. Nutshell she is is (mostly) 'just another rider' with a head, 2 arms, 2 legs with a (broadly) similar motorcycle to the rest of the field / league and the 'proof of the pudding' will be when she is actually on-track v the rest. You can't hide in modern speedway, everyone's scores are available for the world to view & discuss, if not instantly, then very quickly. An interesting addition to the British League for sure, good luck to her
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+ someone to carry your kit bag, another holding a fan to your face to cool you down (Nicki P), Bruce Penhall commented "I never had that and I know what my mechanic would say if I'd asked him". Prob "do it yourself", or similar
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On 2/22/2024 at 9:06 PM, r8gdp said:Please don’t mock anyone who has a go at riding a speedway bike I ve tried and it’s bloody scary
Can confirm; defo not easy, much more difficult getting the technique right than you would imagine, a speedway bike is much, much more tham 'just a 500cc motorcycle without gears or brakes', needs to be tamed bit like riding a wild beast i.e. wild stallion or cheetah - not necessarily the Oxford version. Kudos to all those who can, and do
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12 hours ago, *JJ said:I discovered, when I was helping a rider do the MDL circuit, that you could just walk into the pits and no-one would take a blind bit of notice ...
Did same at Reading v Hull, 2000 season. Had a chat with Hull riders pre-meeting, hung out with mechanics whilst riders got changed, only left on 'warm up' as we were obv in the way, potential hazardeous area, riders need to get 'in the zone' - and we woudn't have heard ourselves think
. No-one from home promotion said a word, pit exit to car park was open, occured to us we coulda poss wheeled a bike out "gotta swap it, he needs the other bike out of his van", and coulda been off with it. Very lax security, done same at other tracks but was at least asked what we wanted & warned we needed to leave at warm up time....
Speedway of Nations 2024
in Speedway Grand Prix and Speedway World Cup
Posted
Get In ! Now THAT'S Rock And Roll !
No one can say they didn't deserve it, no one stopped or fell in their races they had to really race hard & Aussies certainly don't ever just lie down, esp when it's v Us Pomms. When Woffy crashed in the GP I thought "Oh, no here we freakin' go again !", but Robert & Dan did it. Good on them. Believe me, people it means waay more when it's your team and / or your country. Loved it, I'm smiling (for once some might say !) 
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