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Meetings between these two rarely disappoint and this was another cracker watched by a huge crowd with plenty of travelling support , from Ht1 that saw Doolan and Worrall passing and re-passing right up to Ht15 that saw a typically spectacular ride from Chris Harris there was value for money in every race. Big crowd, great racing, close score, value for money and a meeting done and dusted in good time, more of the same each week please, the speedway season has started.

Following the injury to Martin Vaculik on Thursday I’ve been looking for any official details of his injury I come on to the thread ( not very often these days due to the drivel that some spew out) to find out only to read 10 pages of Swindon bashing and the same sh**e over and over again,by the same offender Pretty sad really when your not even a Swindon supporter hey Facts are nobody forced them on to the track,accidents happen and that’s speedway just a shame that we’ve lost Martin Get well soon and look forward to the next time he’s on the bike Shirl

I want to see 2 evenly matched sides in most matches not NL rider to stand in for stupid rules

Lakeside's average crowd is probably a fair bit lower than it was 5or 6 years ago, but that is symptomatic of many clubs, these days. I put that down mainly to the disastrous way the sport has been mismanaged in recent years. I see the rule that stopped riders from getting off the bike to prepare the start has been dropped already, barely a month into th e season, the latest example of how Chapman & Co stagger from one crazy idea to the next. Ipswich are fortunate in that they are apparently one of the very few clubs whose attendances have gone against the trend, but many others were in dire financial crisis at the end of last season. One thing that hasn't been mentioned on the thread was timing. Parade was at 8.pm, first race a little before 8.15, last race finished 1hr 20 min later, so credit to the ref for keeping it moving, as last weeks ref did well, so credit where it's due. I think a lot of Lakeside's supporters stopped going and maybe got out of the speedway habit as a result of last years disatrous decision to drop to NL, not that the club had much choice at the time, but some work has to be done now to win the missing fans back.

Only reason Swindon won the league last year was because you got lucky in the final. And nearly made a complete mess of that as well!

Says someone whose home track is Blunsdon. You rarely see a good meeting at Swindon. Nearly always spaced out. Come down Wednesday and lets see how our newly laid track does.

Bet Gavan is getting excited, Kurtz v Morris

Max Fricke is going to be some rider, he's brilliant now, future world champion in my opinion

Probably yet another victory for the Robins down in deepest darkest Dorset. Poole 44-46 Swindon

The problem at Lakeside is that the spectators spread themselves out so much that even a decent crowd can look scanty. Certainly, compared to last season, it was a bumper crowd. The crunch will come when we have decent weather which always, at Lakeside at least, puts a lot on the gate.

Gavan a question for you, would you like Matt Ford as your promoter at Ipswich

And his home average this year?? Near unbeatable. RR won't cover him and weakens the Aces significantly home and away. You would have to know very little about speedway to to not see that.

The irony of this is unbelievable....Wasn’t you the one who said “i’ll Believe Hans over a riders Dad who was there” & now this....you can’t make this up.

Have to laugh at you. On Wednesday you stated Belle Vue would have won at Poole but for Cook and Worrall missing. Now Cook is back and r/r covers Worrall very well, Belle Vue are at home and Poole, with the same team, are going to win away by at least 10? The trouble is Gavan you can be read like an old book. This post was made for the sole purpose of coming on here on Monday night after the meeting to say how Poole choked against a “so called” weakened Belle Vue team. The Aces aren’t really weakened at home. Worrall can be covered easily with r/r. Etheridge is no loss at all. A rider from the Colts team could easily strengthen the Aces. If Poole win it will be hard won. We have a chance, yes, but Belle Vue are still favourites to win the meeting. They are a likely playoff team. You will have to do better than that.

Typical numpty comment from a no nothing.

Poole fan??? Definitely not a Poole fan!

So who has ultimate responsibility for speedway meetings? I'm presuming the referee by authority delegated to him/her from the ACU. Has to be someone in command, otherwise you get chaos with every Tom Dick and Harry trying to lay claim to being in authority. By all means the referee can listen and seek opinions, but they should be able to intervene with full authority and take charge when these situations exist, where so many variables are at play. I won't shift from my view this was caused, as most system failures are, by weak management and fully agree that it needs prompt investigation with Crystal clear directives.

796 tickets left for Motor - Start tomorrow, it will be a sell out again

There’s not an automatic right to all four back no - but standing on the second bend it was clear to see all four made a good start together it got nipped up and Bowtell from gate two made clear contact with haertel and haertel with Morley on the outside - both continued on trying to save it and subsequently fell of on their own but it was a clear case of first bend bunching and the ref denied the paying public of a speedway race with all four riders back in! Wouldn’t have made much difference to be result but just seemed a very harsh decision on the two young lads racing hard for the first corner!

When these situations happens, it should be essential that the BSPA learn from them and make amendments to address any issues that became evident. It is wrong to place the blame squarely on the Referee. Track conditions can change and riders opinions can as well. We need to have guidelines in place to react when these situations happen...

Championship shield, will be same teams as last night but question mark over Etheridge who seems to of picked up a hand injury, think this will be a very good close meeting and the best of it is... No rain forecast all day.

You do realise this is the Belle Vue v Poole thread and that we are discussing his form at the NSS not at Swindon?

What do you really expect mate, we've had buckets of rain down here for weeks. Glyn did very well to get it turned over graded and packed to a racable state. He told me it was like a swamp in the morning when he came in. And you cannot put machinery on a sodden track otherwise you will do more damage than good, You will tear the track to shreads in the tyres. Glyn and Matt busted a gut to get that meeting on, way beyond the call of duty. Just think yourself lucky you saw some speedway, otherwise you would have had the hump after a 400 mile round trip..

But we still won it.

Exactly what I was thinking, always a snoozefest at Blunsdon, at least our holes made it interesting last year

You get far better racing on a decent track at Swindon rather than one full of holes and bumps. I hope they have improved Poole as it needed it.

He won't find it as easy as last year. Anyway Nick can have a max and Poole win, suits me!!

But that was on a decent track in Poland

And this one

Chris Holder seems to have got his mojo back !!!!

He will when Nick gets more points than Brad

IOW Post Match Press Release Isle of Wight 48 Belle Vue Colts 42 Shale starved speedway fans were served up a feast of action and controversy as the Isle of Wight ‘Wightlink’ Warriors launched their season with a victory over the Belle Vue Colts at The Andrew Younie Smallbrook Stadium tonight. In a meeting that contained almost every incident imaginable, ring rusty Warriors were immediately on the back foot as first new boy Danno Verge and then Chris Widman incurred penalties for starting offences. This allowed the Colts to build a four point advantage but it didn’t take long for the home side to record 4-2 heat victories and by heat eight the match was tied at 24 all. In fact the Warriors were on their way to four 4-2 heat advantages in the space of five heats as they built a four point lead of their own by the interval. The last of those came when Colts Kyle Bickley took a crashing fall in heat 10 which stunned the good sized crowd in to silence, however, much to everyone’s relief the young man from Cumbria was able to get back to his feet and return to the pits unaided. Looking ahead to the final five races it was clear that Belle Vue had lined up their big hitters for the crucial closing races and with Danny Ayres as spectacular as ever and Georgie Wood always in the thick of the action, the visitors harboured hopes of an away victory but it was not to be. Heat 11 gave Ayres his third race win with partner Ben Woodhull in third and the Warriors lead was cut to two points. Bickley won heat 12 showing no ill effects from his crash with Scott Campos and Adam Portwood filling the minor places, then drama aplenty in heat 13 with Ayres passing Warriors Ben Hopwood just as Wood pulled out with a motor problem. Warriors Ben Morley (pictured) then broke a primary chain with a lap and a quarter to go and had to run over a lap pushing his bike to pick up the vital single point. He made it to the chequered flag with fifteen seconds to go roared home by fans and team mates alike. This pulsating meeting now took another twist when in heat 14, Warriors Chris Widman got slightly out of shape and collided with Colts Woodhull. The race was stopped and somewhat controversially the visitor was disqualified for causing the stoppage of the heat. The race result was awarded as a 3-3 and so to the final heat with Morley and Hopwood against Ayres and Bickley. From the gate both Warriors showed first with Ayres in red hot pursuit. A good pass moved him by Hopwood and to just metres behind Morley but then disaster struck the visiting number one who tried an outside surge to pass Morley but ran out of space exiting turn four and crashed to the track. Again the referee had to stop the heat and after a moments deliberation disqualified Ayres and awarded the race 5-1 to the Warriors. So ended a quite remarkable night of speedway in which fortunes ebbed and flowed and the rub of the green landed Warriors Way. After the meeting Ben Morley was quick to praise an all round team effort and went on to say “It was a great way to start my season with the Isle of Wight. I had one or two machinery niggles but have started to sort them out – one thing for sure, I don’t want to have to push the bike home for over a lap on a track this size again! “ Warriors: Ben Morley 12+1, Danno Verge 6+1, Scott Campos 7+1, Chris Widman 5, Ben Hopwood 11+1, Jamie Sealey 1+1, Adam Portwood 6+3. Colts: Danny Ayres 12, Paul Bowen 0, Kyle Bickley 8+1, Joe Lawlor 9+1, Georgie Wood 7, Kean Dicken 0, Ben Woodhull 6.

It didn't make any sense that rule, the gardening has to be done within the 2 min rule so what is the problem.

Learn what “hindsight & Irony” mean & then perhaps we can have an adult conversation. Other than that....bye!

To make it easy for you. I believe everyone that's not on Swindon's side.

I'd suggest current form is a better indicator, and he has been awesome at the NSS this season, whereas as good as Tungate can be round there he hasn't got going yet. No doubt whatsoever Worrall will be a big miss as he was the other night.

I agree with the comments about heat 8. Quite clearly the ref' got it wrong...sadly as they so often do. But this was a good performance by our team and looks good for the season. Just hope we steer clear of injuries. I think Bowtell will prove to be an ace in the hole and I have high hopes for this young man who I first saw in a training school at Rye House. Was impressed then, and nothing has changed.

While waiting on the appeal to be heard. Seems those in charge just pick and choose when they are going to apply the rules.

Ill leave this here. The following is from Kyle Newman's Dad. yes they were given the opportunity to do a lap, a parade lap with no helmets. Therefore that is not the practice lap that Swindon and Rosco claim. Palm-Toft also knew nothing about a practice lap. Swindon lying end of story.

Only if you announce another self imposed sabbatical

Well I was there on Thursday, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was a little concerned with the fog on the Solent, but luckily it lifted inland. Young Ben was involved with some great scraps with Danny ayres, which provided great entertainment!

The rain was expected to stop early morning then Rob & his crew were hoping to prepare the track early afternoon for the evenings racing. Rob also has a job to do at his garage. When the crew were at the track, they found out that it was a losing battle to prepare the track. http://scunthorpescorpions.co/?p=8351

To confirm this Franz Heck of Berlin was indeed the rider who won at the Nürburgring in 1928. If he had been practising "dirt-track" in Berlin before making his debut at Hamburg-Lokstedt in that 1929 season, he can only have ridden on one of the Berlin horse trotting tracks at Mariendorf and Ruhleben (long-tracks of 1,000 and 1,200m length), which were used for motorcycle track racing at the time. In 1929 there was no shorter "dirt-track" speedway in Berlin. Such a track was eventually opened in Berlin in March of 1930, but was not a great success. It was a much smaller oval compared to Hamburg Lokstedt. The Berlin Dirt Track was only 333m long and was built inside the existing 400m cycle track at the Olympia-Radrennbahn in Plötzensee. Other tracks for dirt-track racing in those "boom" years of 1929 and 1930 in Germany were opened at Breslau, Munich, Stuttgart, Oberhausen, Cologne, and a number of other towns, but soon the novelty factor wore off, and most of these enterprises did not last very long. In fact , Oberhausen was the only pre-war track track that was still used (revived) for Speedway after WW2, and well into the 1960s.

Call-offs ARE costly!!! The stadium rental alone is a killer. Stadium owners don’t just say, “have this one on us” they are business men too ALSO, ask another question, if no-one goes to speedway but stays at home to watch it on whatever you can..... will the tracks be kept open to film for your viewing pleasure?

The meeting v BV was an OK first meeting. The track alterations were good but the surface was simply too 'claggy' with all the rain, although it did get better as the evening went on. For Poole Kurtz looked the business with the others doing ok especially as the track dried out a bit (Woryna did comment beforehand that he wasn't happy with his bikes after the afternoon practice!). For BV Fricke was the clearly the star having his best performance (I think) at Wimborne Road. Ably supported by Bewley and Starke but without much support from the others (Batch and Tungate were dire!!) It may have been a little different if Cook and Worrall had ridden but then Starke and Fricke may not have scored as well. No real incidents requiring referee (Ronnie Allan) intervention - Batchelor sliding off on his own and getting off the track not even requiring a restart. Not the best meeting for a more than decent crowd but slickly presented and all done by half nine.

There's a 22 minute video on the Pirates Twitter and Facebook platforms showing interviews before the meeting with home and away riders plus the referee, followed by some action, interviews at the press conference which includes4 Poole riders, Middlo and Matt Ford.

Bonus from tonight was a more controlled performance from Alfie Bowtell ,,the lad has top class gating ability and.with improved confidence from last night could be the turning point for him.. after previous performances where he did not look ready for this level of racing......Heat 8 was an appalling decision by another useless ref,, one of the most obvious first bend bunching situations i have ever seen ..the standard of refereeing is at a low ebb in speedway.,.Thought the crowd was decent and the meeting had its moments ,Lawson and Ellis were outstanding,,,,but riders giving it a real go on a wide line are still not getting enough help from the track .,,more dirt is needed .The Hammers look a solid unit and i think we can expect a decent season home and away.....

No it’s usually better when the weather is better but with the amount of rain we’ve had, all the track curator can really do is get the track packed down hard so at least it didnt fall foul of the weather like so many others. The trouble is when it is packed down you pay the price with less grip. PersonallyI thought it was a better meeting last week but Awesome Lawson was, well, awesome. His sweep round the outside of bends 1&2 off gate 4 in heat 13 was quite exceptional, especially against a rider of Danny Kings quality. Gate 4 has a slight adverse camber and hardly anyone wins off of it in the big heats. Ippo’s problem was they had two riders who had never ridden the track before and just couldn’t get on with it. Good call by the ref in heat 8. There is no automatic right to all four back. One rider fell off on his own. The other hit the air fence and was not under power when the race was stopped.

And still they bite ..even when you tell people .

Jeez is all this bickering still going on.