...and riding as a 2nd string at number 2  

Exactly.    So a pointless exercise in preaching to the converted!    Not a single non-speedway fan in the hall, but some misguided souls think promoters should have been there, "marketing the sport" to people who weren't there.

Exactly.    Peterborough have an important message they need to spread throughout existing speedway fans in the East Midlands/East Anglia area.     It makes total sense for them to be present at a Speedway collectors fair in the East Midlands, which is full of existing speedway fans from the East Midlands. That's a totally different scenario from expecting the Glasgow promoters to make a 600-mile round trip to Coventry, to a hall full of existing speedway fans, hoping to market the sport to some Glaswegians who have never seen speedway before, and who aren't there!

But is it a bad thing having a "spare" rider waiting in the wings? How often is a teams season over before its started because their number 1 bins it early or even before the season even starts. 

Nowhere does it say they wernt speedway fans !

Exactly that. All this 'your league' stuff is the reason there will never be any progress. You can't have the two competing against each other, if they can't work together then they're all doomed.