Scottish Open

[DavyH 164]

Why is it that the Scottish Open meetings always takes an eternity to run? The Monarchy do a good job with regular team meetings, so

why is it year in, year out, does this meeting take so long? My main reason for not going.

 

Agreed George, my back is killing me today after all the hanging around.

 

However with 22 heats to run it's always going to take a fair bit time. Throw in a break after every 4 heats as a rider always has two races in a row and it takes longer still. Plus there seems to be more crashes than usual - maybe a combination of a few riders new to the track plus we often get 4 riders of heat leader ability going for the same spot with the ineviatble all four back resulting.

 

The above will happen at any indivdual meeting not just one's at Armadale! - throw in problems with the track last night and the tyre fiasco and I am amazed it finished at all.

 

By 8.45pm we had only seen 8 heats so they did well to get all the racing completed by 10pm.

[Midnight_Lady 2]

Why tracks continue to inflict these individual meetings on the paying public is beyond me ,

 

Usually individual meetings are a way to help a club's finances.

 

I see posts moaning about how long the Scottish Open "always" takes and I disagree with that. As Davy says there has to be intervals to allow riders extra time when taking two on the trot and considering there are twenty two heats I don't think the Open usually drags on apart from last night of course. Some tracks take nearly two hours to complete a normal fifteen heats!

[Paulco 7,080]

Usually individual meetings are a way to help a club's finances.

 

 

But are they these days ? I wasn't there last night so i don't know what the crowd was like , but i'd imagine it wouldn't be anymore than an important team match . These things are at best boring , with only the final being of real interest . I would love to see these things binned and maybe a Scotland international against Germany , the USA or an England PL side taking their place .

Edited July 24, 2010 by Paulco

[ylinenhare5-1 0]

But are they these days ? I wasn't there last night so i don't know what the crowd was like , but i'd imagine it wouldn't be anymore than an important team match . These things are at best boring , with only the final being of real interest . I would love to see these things binned and maybe a Scotland international against Germany , the USA or an England PL side taking their place .

 

I agree, Paulco. Crowd last night was not bad - probably up slightly on a the usual PL match.

 

Wasn't going to go last night, but we changed our mind at the last minute - kind of wish we hadn't!

 

A Scotland International would be much more appealing to me.

[Paulco 7,080]

I agree, Paulco. Crowd last night was not bad - probably up slightly on a the usual PL match.

 

Wasn't going to go last night, but we changed our mind at the last minute - kind of wish we hadn't!

 

A Scotland International would be much more appealing to me.

By the way i'm not having a go at the Scottish Open or Armadale , it's individual meetings in general . The Ashfield Classic is generally the least interesting meeting of the season at Glasgow .

The PLRC at Sheffield is good , it's also a good social occasion , the Cardiff GP is a good piss-up . But apart from those two , you wouldn't have enough wild horses to drag me to one of these things .

[Ellesmere Gunner 0]

By the way i'm not having a go at the Scottish Open or Armadale , it's individual meetings in general . The Ashfield Classic is generally the least interesting meeting of the season at Glasgow .

The PLRC at Sheffield is good , it's also a good social occasion , the Cardiff GP is a good piss-up . But apart from those two , you wouldn't have enough wild horses to drag me to one of these things .

Paulco The Handicap Bordenapolis Meeting at Berwick last October won by Chris Harris was a bit special!

[george.m 3,063]

Agreed George, my back is killing me today after all the hanging around.

 

However with 22 heats to run it's always going to take a fair bit time. Throw in a break after every 4 heats as a rider always has two races in a row and it takes longer still. Plus there seems to be more crashes than usual - maybe a combination of a few riders new to the track plus we often get 4 riders of heat leader ability going for the same spot with the ineviatble all four back resulting.

 

The above will happen at any indivdual meeting not just one's at Armadale! - throw in problems with the track last night and the tyre fiasco and I am amazed it finished at all.

 

By 8.45pm we had only seen 8 heats so they did well to get all the racing completed by 10pm.

 

Thanks DavyH, every Scottish Open I've been to takes an age and there always seems to be waits between heats longer than league meetings. Usually meetings at Armadale run smoothly, it just seems the Open takes an age. If they did it after 8.45pm last night, why not every Open?

[george.m 3,063]

 

 

Yup, the Tyre thing was a bit of a strange one... I'm not sure experimentation of this sort was prudent at this meeting, given that a large crowd all paid £18 bucks of their hard earned cash?

 

 

A serious point, and not one of my usual mickey takes about Embra.

 

All the goings on of the semi final seem to have over shadowed this point about tyres.

 

The Scottish Open should be one of the premier meetings in Scotland every season, in theory. Even if some of us are not too keen on individual meetings.

 

Punters pay more at the gate and hopefully see a stronger field of riders than normal.

It might even attract a few new spectators and some existing ones from further afield.

 

This begs the question, who made the decision to test tyres at the meeting?

 

This was a high risk strategy. Testing of any nature involves a degree of uncertainty.

 

I'm amazed that anyone would risk this meeting and at the potential downsides to test some tyres?

 

Just why would anyone do it?

 

Does anyone know who agreed to it and why?

 

P.S. Reported by Mike Hunter on the Edinburgh website as:

 

"There were tyre problems".

 

Reads like economy with the truth to me!

Edited July 24, 2010 by george.m

[cyclone 943]

A serious point, and not one of my usual mickey takes about Embra.

 

All the goings on of the semi final seem to have over shadowed this point about tyres.

 

The Scottish Open should be one of the premier meetings in Scotland every season, in theory. Even if some of us are not too keen on individual meetings.

 

Punters pay more at the gate and hopefully see a stronger field of riders than normal.

It might even attract a few new spectators and some existing ones from further afield.

 

This begs the question, who made the decision to test tyres at the meeting?

 

This was a high risk strategy. Testing of any nature involves a degree of uncertainty.

 

I'm amazed that anyone would risk this meeting and at the potential downsides to test some tyres?

 

Just why would anyone do it?

 

Does anyone know who agreed to it and why?

 

P.S. Reported by Mike Hunter on the Edinburgh website as:

 

"There were tyre problems".

 

Reads like economy with the truth to me!

 

A lot of us were asking the same thing last night regarding the identity of the individual who imposed these "Gold" brand tyres on the unsuspecting riders

 

imo the falls in the first 8 heats and subsequent withdrawal of Busch due to injury, appeared to be caused by using these prototypes.

 

We then had a further delay when the riders lobbied their complaints about this issue and were justifiably given time to refit conventional tyres. I would also imagine that switching back would also affect the riders subsequent performances.

 

There's no doubt that the tyre fiasco adversely impacted on what should have been a showpiece event, given the field assembled, and hopefully lessons will be learned not to conduct such "experiments" in front of the paying public in future.

[BigFatDave 258]

By the way i'm not having a go at the Scottish Open or Armadale , it's individual meetings in general . The Ashfield Classic is generally the least interesting meeting of the season at Glasgow .

The PLRC at Sheffield is good , it's also a good social occasion , the Cardiff GP is a good piss-up . But apart from those two , you wouldn't have enough wild horses to drag me to one of these things .

I'm sure if Santa stuffed a couple of tickets to Oz for the Solo Championships in your xmas sporran you'd be here like a shot; braces, rolled-up trousers, socks in sandals and knotted hankerchief on yer head an' all!

[suzuki star 882 0]

Can anyone please tell me what was different about these golden tyres ?

 

Cheers.

[ylinenhare5-1 0]

Can't tell you too much, but Alex Harkess explained the tyres a bit in last Friday's programme. They were described as "too hard" and that they were "more difficult to get on and off the rim".

 

Joe Screen struggled badly, but upon changing from the golden tyre - looked very good. However Andrew Tully stuck with tyre all night and only changed it for the final - he finished 3rd overall and 12 points from his 5 rides. 3 other riders kept the tyre on the whole night, Kalle Katajisto thought they were fine as well.

 

It was a bad idea to introduce something that was still being tested - althought they have been tried out quite a bit abroad. The Edinburgh promotion do regret trying them now, but its hard to tell if the first 8 heats were down to the new tyre or the track conditions. Not that I'm blaming the track, as it was quite grippy - it was really hard to tell! I'm guessing the riders who were struggling looked for something to blame and the new tyre was the obvious culprit!!

[suzuki star 882 0]

Thanks for that, although I would still like more technical info on these tyres if anyone knows.