MrMungo

"With only eight riders allowed in each National League squad it is Richard Franklin - who would have rode for the Saints at the Eddie Wright Raceway on Easter Monday but for the intervention of the weather - who makes way for Hart." From the Scunthorpe website

The following meetings are due to be shown during the month of May. 2/5 Holsted V Fjelsted 7/5 Grindsted V Esbjerg 9/5 Slangerup V Fjelsted 11/5 Outrup V Slangerup 14/5 Grindsted V Holsted 16/5 Danish Final @ Holsted 30/5 Holsted V Esbjerg (from www.speedway-league.com)

Yes! The Scunthorpe home leg! Although both were great adverts for NL racing. Scunthorpe kept the signing of Hart rather quiet! I guess he was signed to cover for the possible unavailability of Worrall/Irving. Either that, or they have changed their minds regarding the whole youth development thing. Oliver Greenwood broke his collarbone a few weeks back, so I guess he is rather doubtful, but you never know with these young kids. Morley/Pickard/Sargeant probably look like the best available guests, and hopefully they'll move Clegg into the side too.

Don't think Crump will be complaining with a start like that!

I concur with much of what you say, Steve, however, I don't think Holder's pass on Gollob had anything to do with them "knocking 5 bells out of each other". Holder clearly noticed that Gollob was carrying far too much speed into the corners, he was struggling to keep the momentum going coming out of the bends and Holder said "thank you very much"!

Why on earth were the Polish fans booing? Weird! Great close GP, great final. Congrats to Holder who looked super fast towards the end of the meeting

Not in heat 14 though! Holsted V Fjelsted (Nicki V Hans) next match. 2nd May i think they said. The Outrup V Grindsted gets repeated numerous times over the weekend. http://kanalsport.dk/programoversigt for more information. (times are CET, of course) I assume all repeats will be viewable on the website, but not 100% sure.

Heat 10 up next. They just got fed up with showing the heat 10 bets I guess, so they moved onto heat 11.

Meeting held up at the moment due to the paramedic(s) attending to a spectator. Before that, there were lots of complaints regarding track conditions, so they had a lengthy track grade.

The financial aspect is of course true, Vog, but to be the best of my knowledge, Buxton haven't moved their track during the winter, so it was always going to be the case! Surely he would've thought that through before signing? Making ends meet in the NL is virtually impossible @ 10/10 (per point/per mile) unless you have excellent sponsors, or extremly deep pockets. However, it is a good apprenticeship, and for 99% of riders it is necessary to move onto the next level. It was calculated by a PL rider during last season that when taking into account all of the costs involved, you aren't breaking even until you're a 5pt PL rider. It's a costly sport, sadly. Hopefully Buxton can get another rider slotted in in the near future.

Think both teams might be up against it on Sunday. Against the weather! Forecast doesn't look too great at all. Can't wait for the summer! If it does go ahead, can only see a confidence boosting win for Mildenhall.

Not a fan then I guess, BW Double? It did surprise me when I read about it in the Star this morning, especially the reason given. Many riders have gone to tracks they have previously struggled at to become better riders. Some have been successful at it, others haven't. It's a shame it's not worked out for Webster and Buxton, but hopefully Buxton can sign up a decent heat leader in his place. I don't think a lack of riders would be a problem. The NL went from 10 to 8 teams during the winter, so in theory there should be a good dozen or so riders available (most are decent reserves, or second strings though), but judging from what was written in the Star, getting a heat leader to ride for £10 a point is a bigger issue. There are riders out there though. IOW have recently signed Kyle Hughes as a temporary replacement, and I imagine he has a similar average to Webster. There's also one of R Worrall/Birks/McKinna, or whoever Stoke don't have in the side at the moment. Have Allott/Taylor/Hargreaves/Courtney/Evans all retired?

I thought the ref did well all things considered. If a rider falls and is back in the re-run, he should be allowed sufficient time to check for any machinery issues and to repair them if possible. The ref should give riders a fair amount of time, and not just stick the 2 minutes on straight away for the hell of it. I can't remember the exact time when the meeting finished but I guess it was about 10.30pm? 3 hours to stage 25 heats with the various falls, spills and incidents doesn't seem too bad to me at all. The only thing that slightly bugged me was the 125 and 250cc races. A great addition to the meeting, but which bright spark decided to stage all 3 125cc races on a trot at the start of the meeting, and then all 3 250cc races on a trot later in the evening? Surely mixing them up a bit would've been a better idea? Or maybe it's just me. Considering it rained for pretty much exactly an hour prior to the start of the meeting, I thought the track held up really well. It's a technical track, and if you add in an hour's worth of rain, it's usually a very messy combination! The first half a dozen heats were always going to be tricky but the track settled down well after that I thought. On this occasion, I don't think sawdust was necessary. Sawdust is not always ideal. It can make a track "clumpy" or so I've been told before. I tend to look at sawdust as a last resort. The biggest disappointment of the night was the food, which was truly horrendous. Congrats to Joe Haines. Great to see him up there again after the last few seasons he's had. Commisserations to Richie Worrall. I'd loved to seen him win it, but I guess it wasn't meant to be on this occassion.

3 points from 3 rides.

The draw for the Final has been made. LINE-UP: Tom Perry, Kyle Howarth, Robert Branford, Ben Morley, Marc Owen, Kyle Newman, Joe Haines, Adam Wrathall, Steven Worrall, Ashley Morris, Stefan Nielsen, Richie Worrall, James Sarjeant, Jerran Hart, Jason Garrity, Joe Jacobs. Reserves: Ben Hopwood, Richard Franklin. http://www.speedwaygb.co/news.php?extend.15216

Niall Strudwick in for the unfortunate Josh Bates. Assuming the meeting goes ahead. The forecast doesn't look too wonderful!

Rayson was one of those who didn't get a team place this year. Probably due to the NL going to 8 teams from 10. He didn't ride in the Under 21 qualifier either, so maybe he's having a break from the sport at the moment. Heavy shower(rain/sleet/hail) before the meeting made the track a little tricky to begin with. Still some good races. Stoneman continues to impress me. Heeps looked a lot sharper this week and was a class apart. Very impressive showings from Halsey and Blackbird, too. Stokes very impressive and solid for the Young Stars. Cockle was always in the thick of it, and the rest of the YS were competitive but not really threatening, perhaps a little race rusty. Bates and Nielsen didn't have luck on their sides. Bates just lost control down the back straight, clipped the fence, looked like he had saved it but lost control on the 3rd bend and Campos did really well to lay the bike down as quickly as he did. It could've been a lot worse than it was. Neither rider rode anymore but Campos looked okay in the pits, whereas Bates has a possible dislocated shoulder. Nielsen put in a couple of good rides before the chain snapped in the last bend of his third ride throwing him off the bike. Borrowed Jacobs' bike in the next ride and treated us all to a kangaroo impression at the start! Hopefully both riders will be okay for the trip to Dudley on Tuesday.

I was reliably informed that the curfew is at 10pm. However...@ approx 9.30pm Jake Knight had a suspected broken ankle and we were waiting for a county ambulance, which is the norm at most tracks I've visited. Effectively, they had 30 minutes to get Jake Knight seen to and taken to hospital and to stage the next batch of races (4 heats). This was never likely to happen in 30 minutes time, so someone somewhere made the <correct> decision of calling it off early and to ensure that no more time was wasted.

I'll be there cheering on Mildenhall

Expecting Dudley to be much sharper today. Heeps aside Mildenhall riders have had very little competitive track time. Think it'll be a very tight match and wouldn't be at all surprised to see it go down to a last heat decider.

You mean other than he's Australian?

2 L's in Worrall, too

He's a Scorpio.

Dan Berwick confirmed for Stoke.

I only saw him once last season - got a double figure score at Scunthorpe! Or pretty close to it at least. Looked Dudley's best rider on the night. Definitely think he's worthy of a place in the NL.