Khabiboulin

Six hours in bank holiday traffic for nothing

Full scorecard (including your missing heat time, Derek) available here: http://eliteeaglescouk.ipage.com/pdf/eaglets-lakeside.pdf

Scorecard available here: http://eliteeaglescouk.ipage.com/pdf/2012-British-Youth-R4.pdf

Dekker, I don't think I can quote on my phone. But my point was that a lot of meetings are called off having had much less bad weather than Berwick had. So if assume covers on those tracks would give a slightly better end result than at Berwick on Saturday, then yes, I do think it's worth it. Also, a bit more practice and experience with covers would probably have given a better track on Saturday too. It did look like the tractors made the bends a bit worse to start with so I'm sure a bit more experience would help with preparing a track in those conditions. The racing wasn't great but there were a few ok races towards the end.

We drove up from Kent so I too am grateful to the track staff. A nice venue, I enjoyed it. Berwick have proved that covering tracks can work in this country. They had about the worst conditions possible and got the meeting on which suggests to me that at least half of current rain-offs could be saved.

But 2-minute exclusions don't count towards averages whether the rider is (or can be) replaced or not. I think in that case it is 3 from 1 although his team will only have had 28 rides that count towards averages that night. Slightly odd maybe but I think that's the right way - the same as if there are three-rider races because of injuries.

Three 2-minute exclusions when he didn't turn up? That's interesting, although in my book I wouldn't count that as a meeting because he didn't actually appear on track (or even in the pits, presumably!) Any ideas when the SCB (not you!) might finally decide to replace the 2011 rules on their website with 2012 ones?

If a rider takes part in a meeting but officially takes no rides, what happens? The scenario I mean is when a rider is injured in his first ride (which is stopped and re-run), he is not excluded but is unable to take any further part in the meeting. In normal record keeping, this would go down as the slightly odd (but in my opinion, totally correct) 1 meeting, 0 rides. Normally that has no impact on averages. But under these rolling averages where only the last 28 or 38 meetings count, it matters. The scenario happened to Joonas Kylmakorpi this season and it appears the BSPA have completely discounted his appearance in that meeting which I think is the wrong thing to do. In many ways, I quite like the rolling averages, but (as well as the above scenario) I don't like the way that meetings from so long ago can still count. When very, very few riders ride every meeting in a season, they are very likely to have meetings from 2 seasons ago counting - that doesn't seem right really. The rider who is quite cleaely the best rider in the Elite League is still getting his average reduced by his less impressive 2010 form - is that right? Is it really relevant now? And what I find even more silly is that now the PL has a different number of meetings from last year, every single rider is guaranteed to have very old meetings counting.

Thanks Bryn - appreciated. Oh, and I meant to ask, did Slick Nick Laurence recover his stolen equipment?

Do you have heat details, Derek? I was at the meeting but not in time for the "first half". It's disappointing Arena put these meetings on as first halves and not second halves; I'm not sure why - they don't have a curfew, do they?

Thanks Dave. But does that mean 2009 (and earlier) meetings count where necessary, even though they didn't last year? Your wording seems to suggest so. It obviously wouldn't affect many riders, but would, for example, Renat Gafurov use his last 4 meetings for Swindon to go with his 24 for Poole? If so, it seems strange given that didn't apply similarly last year. But if not, it makes the start-2010 cut-off incredibly arbitrary. I quite like the idea of rolling averages but I think once a season is complete, it should only be that season's meetings that count for a current average (a rider could still have an average based purely on an earlier season if he hadn't ridden enough meetings in that last season). So 500cc - I agree with you. What Dave appears to be saying is the current system seems to over-benefit riders on an upward curve (e.g. Darcy Ward, who is clearly one of the world's best riders, but gets his average reduced by results from two years ago) and over-penalise riders on a downward curve. Oh and one more thought - I thought the 28 and 38 were based on "whole" seasons. But next year the PL will have 26 league meetings plus 10 "early-season competition" meetings, excluding later rounds, cup, play-offs etc which shouldn't count. So will they still use 38?

It was "Young Australia", not Australia Under-23, primarily, I think, so that Woodward could ride. But it also allowed 30-year old McGowan to race. 29-year old Allen was a late replacement for the ill Woffinden. Having said that, Boxall is also 25 I think, and he was named in the original line-up, so it should really have been Young Great Britain too. Nelson rather than Tyson Nelson is one of Len Silver's weird gimmicks, like Karlis instead of Karlis Ezergailis. Not really sure why on earth he thinks it adds anything though. http://eliteeaglescouk.ipage.com/pdf/2011-gb-aus.pdf

Congratulations to Henry Atkins on winning the inaugural title. Here's the scorecard on the unofficial Eastbourne site: http://eliteeaglescouk.ipage.com/pdf/125cc-british.pdf

If you look just ten post above yours I have done exactly that. I suggested a very simple method based on THE recognised heat format for a pairs meeting: 7 pairs, 21 heats, each pair has 6 rides, 1 against every other pair. You just have two semi-finals using this format (at separate meetings) and use these to determine the 7 finalists.

Pairs meetings are traditionally 7 pairs, 21 heats, so why not have two semi-finals using the traditional meeting format, top three from each qualify plus highest scoring 4th placed team.

Wednesday's meeting was certainly better but I thought it was still ok last night. The Australians can certainly blame their defeat on Batchelor. I'm surprised they couldn't find anyone else at all to come in. Cameron Woodward is normally happy to take last minute bookings and presumably wouldn't have been far away. I thought Sedgmen was a bad choice of cover for Doyle too, considering how many Australians there are out there. Why they couldn't get Barker and King the right way round in the programme, I don't know, considering they had their averages correct. Care to share any more? On the face of it, that sounds pretty disgusting. I also noticed he was slouching around over the fence during the national anthems - hardly very respectful. Bridger was also fiddling with his bike some of the time. I couldn't understand Woffinden's move in heat 7. He looked round on the back straight and saw Barker was going on the outside and yet still decided to change his line to the outside and ultimately cause Barker to fall. There was no contact but there wasn't much else Barker could do. Quite a strange one. Overall I thought the series was pretty good and much better than having a one-off. It would have been better still if it had had three matches, as originally promised, if the pricing structure was as originally promised (also strange that Poole and Arena charged differently), and if riders like Richardson and Crump had been involved.

"Ill" apparently

Agreed. My post above was a bit negative, but that's not to say there wasn't good racing and Bomber in particular was superb.

Absolutely disagree that Doyle's crash was a turning point. It affected that heat only. They were going to put him in heat 14 for Batchelor too but Batchelor came second in that so it didn't impact that. Once Britain caught back up after the disastrous first two heats it was nip and tuck - there were no turning points. Australia got a 5-1 in heat 13 so how can heat 12 have been a turning point? And why can't Poole have two ambulances, or at least something that allows injuries to be dealt with quicker? With the interval as well, we had one lap's racing in an hour. Out of four meetings that I've travelled to Poole for this year, two have had major delays for injuries (and there was a third that I didn't go to, on Sky - any more that I'm unaware of?). Yes, riders need attention when they get hurt and in no way do I begrudge them that (best wishes to Doyle) but you can't expect the paying public to stand around doing nothing for an hour in half your meetings. The speakers were virtually inaudible last night too, so the procession of gap-filling interviews didn't help at all.

I expect so too, especially considering only 7 riders have been announced for each team. This is the format that's been used for all Test matches in the last decade or so (not that there have been any senior Tests for a few years). The proper 18-heat 8-man Test match format hasn't been used for a very long time. Wasn't it suggested Jason Crump would be riding in these when they were first announced? I was really looking forward to them and booked time off for them, but they aren't looking so great any more. The £35 for all three meetings deal evaporated (we'll now have to pay more than that for just two) with no explanation, the second Test disappeared and the line-ups aren't full-strength. The GB team for Friday is pathetically weak with 2 of our top 3 riders missing.

That was my first visit to Smallbrook and it made an enjoyable day out. I had thought Nick Simmons was going to be a bit lucky getting a maximum having being third in the race when Chessell crashed before winning the re-run. But he certainly earned it the hard way in heat 15, so well done to him. Jason Garrity was again very entertaining and he looks a real prospect. Seems to be quite a character too. Also good to see John Resch continuing to progress.

It does seem a bit harsh. I doubt he'll ever progress beyond his current level but he's obviously keen and puts the effort in so probably didn't deserve such public criticism. By the way, you've spelt his name wrong: it's Laurence

Test match or extremely minor league? Clearly an easy choice. What a joke British speedway is.

I assumed the problem was Poland, as usual. What's happening to the deal where you could buy one ticket for all three meetings at a significant reduction? I think it was meant to be about £35, wasn't it? I'm sure it was mentioned when these Tests were first announced. I was trying to find out more about it at the weekend but could find no mention on the BSPA, Poole, Swindon or Arena websites. Something that was conveniently forgotten when they realised that Poland (probably) was going to lead to Swindon's cancellation for the third time this season?

Does anyone know the heat format used for this? If anyone would be kind enough to scan the programme that would be ideal and much appreciated.