Leaderboard

Was done at the request of those stood near you so they couldn't hear your constant whining.

Just run six rider teams in the top league if not enough of the required level of rider.. No RS's, No Makeweight's... Each race having four riders who actually "have a chance" of winning... Use the other two divisions for young UK rider development...

Is anyone really surprised though...🤨

I'm not sure anybody really cares anymore...

Tough opener for Berwick against a team that’s had plenty of track time. You could see some of the Bandits side were rusty. Cook has had little or no competitive laps. Kildermand just back from injury, but looked sharp. Looked like he may have re injured himself in his last heat. Borke clearly suffering from his previous injury and looking very uncomfortable all night. Hagon looks low on confidence, a shadow of the rider who scored double points with Poole at Berwick last year. Dale Wood can gate, but he looks a bit wobbly. Hopefully he gets used to the track soon. An upgrade on Hodder. Bandits star man was Drew Kemp who looked like he’d max if it wasn’t for a shed chain. Lots of bad luck for the Bandits, otherwise may have sneaked a win. Good to see Craig Cook get a couple of morale boosting wins.

Having spannerd for a few riders over the years I can say here and now as much as I like Nicki I couldn’t spanner for him

Good showing from Perry so far, great to see

Yeh, but he’s right,the presentation is stuck in a time warp,every track is the same!!

Not like you to talk sense. I expect you did it by accident. Leicester protected him as their RS so no one else could have him. Then drop him straight away once there's nowhere else he can go.

Why always Birmingham?

Both Ekstraliga meetings: Shestakov Ekstraliga: https://vk.com/video-81427162_456239689 Lublin v Częstochowa: https://vk.com/video-53550004_456242124

I thinks it's harsh & too early for a couple of reasons. 1) Hagon hasn't had any Champ matches yet to compare his form to Gilkes. 2) Leicester "reserved" Hagon as their RS, meaning no other team could secure him in the draft, to then drop him seems odd. To "reserve" Hagon rather than hope someone better was available when it came to their pick, must mean they had a lot of faith in Sam's ability, where has that faith disappeared to?

The Berwick side of the pits is going to be a real barrel of laughs with Stewart Dickson, Craig Cook and Sam Hagon in it... throw in Drew Kemp when he gets his inevitable binning later in the season and they're going to need another team building day on the go karts 😉😂

And this is where Phil Morris needs to do his job and mediate if there is an issue. At the end of the day Ben Cook has been riding in Poland all of five minutes and reached the required standard by learning his trade in the UK over several seasons. So in the politest terms they can stick their millions and Foxtrot Oscar.

Ultimately it probably was the right decision, I just hope that he's given the time and backing.

Gilkes replaces Hagon

There are 3 teams clearly better than the other four... With one of them clearly better than the other two.. The other four then get split into pairs... Oxford and Birmingham being the bottom pair.. From the moment all the teams were announced that was going to be the case as the vast amount of comments on here clearly showed, (and Bet365's odds!) Never quite understand how, each year, after a few weeks into the season, some fans call out how poor their team are when it was "blindingly obvious" before a wheel was turned how much adrift they were from the better teams... "We have gone for strength in depth, with each of our team capable of putting a point on their average".. Translated: "We wanted to sign a world level rider as we know it is the only way to be successful, but we couldn't get one"..

I’m sure Leszno will try make it longer than 8 weeks over here now

So despite your moaning beforehand, you went and enjoyed it, but still found things to moan about…….some people just cant be satisfied…..and its always you.

Yes been lovely to me and my Mrs whenever we have met him but an animal on track, I beat him once in the 90s, I don’t think he ever got over it and it made him like he is 🤣

Grudziadz was a cracking track a couple of years back, Now it's awful. Shame Lodz aren't in the top league as that's a brilliant track.

I don't agree. They are professional speedway rides as such they just like any other professional sportsman have to perform. He's lucky. Due to lack of riders now a days, these boys get a good run. Back in the day, you wouldn't have lasted five meetings with what he was scoring. There would have been at least two second half riders who would have replaced him. As someone else said on here. " Lambs to the slaughter" There shouldn't be a so called rising star in the top league. As for Sam, he's had a fair run if you include last season if you breakdown his scoring from last season. it's not good reading. Hopefully he get his confidence back riding at reserve for Berwick. He has the ability to have a good season at Berwick. I think getting dropped by Leicester will do him a favour in the long run.

He won't be taking his dads money then? We can all see he's no ordinary kid, his dad has bought a club, presumably with a view to him riding for it only for him to come out with that crap! He's probably on top notch gear and he's also got rent-a-Greg coaching him... that's hardly doing it on your own.

Brilliant race between Zmarzlik & Pawlicki 👏👏

I give up on uk speedway sometimes

Does he need to ride UK for his visa though? As he still stays at Middlo's. I get the impression he likes riding UK (as he doesn't agree with some Aussies going straight to Poland first) so be surprised if he dropped it imo.

I also think Leicester is quite a peculiar track and takes quite some mastering even from some of the more experienced riders, so bringing in these riders with little to no experience of it is not helping. To have a Cubs/Fox's team and not be developing through that is a big mistake, the club seems to have alienated the 2 best riders from that system in the Thompsen's and Cairns inexplicably wants to plough his furrow elsewhere. The club made a big thing about the signings of Mountain & Perry, they don't even seemingly come into the equation. Mr Dickson seems to like to wear his ruthlessness as a badge of honour and has mentioned that he's not afraid to make a change a number of times in the media... how about just getting it right from the start? 🤔

I disagree with that, it is a sport & if you're not performing, can't demand a place all season. But I do feel, and this is for all riders, there should be a minimum amount of matches ridden before you can be dropped, maybe 8, at the very minimum 6 imo.

I think that last question is a fair one, I'd be interested to hear an answer but I know we won't get one from the club. The only thing I can think of is Cook pulling out; perhaps they were willing to accept the low scores and building experience but now the situation has changed and Kemp can't replicate the scores Cook could have achieved at times. I'd say that Hagon looked a bit better against BV the other week, although still largely gifted most of his points, but the other day against Ipswich he really did look miles off it, and it's been the latter more often that not in Lions colours.

I got it off Workington Facebook as was going to set off just after 9am and somebody posted it was off so I hang fired until it was official on the Facebook page.I thought I would post on here once it became official so people can make other plans. Need to get a suction pump to suck all the water off the track.

Comets running scared. All joking aside thought this had a good chance of going ahead as not a huge amount of rain fell over night and with a dry and windy day ahead thought it would’ve been fine.

You'll be fine @IainB. At the Cheetahs on Wednesday, Schroeck kept going on about how they want to get the meeting done quickly as they've got to get back up to Leicester in the evening.

Cant believe we have still got to put up with a stupid heat its a draw,both teams deserve to score a league point,get rid oft he stupid heat no wonder speedway is not taken serious by people

Don’t think anyone’s advocating a change of rule for this year. If it was decided not to include heat 15 riders in a new season rule then teams would be built with that in mind. Personally I think it should be scrapped.

Thanks for coming back to me with that @Triple.H., much appreciated 👍. Should be do-able, hopefully I won't end up sprinting back to the car 🏃‍♂️

@IainB i've been to Tesco this morning and checked out the signs, it's definitely a 3 hour limit.

Ah, my bad, thanks for that!

I have a lot of respect for Magic who is very professional and ‘polish golden helmet’ is a perfectly good reason for being unavailable. It’s the riders that ‘polish purple helmet’ rather than show up for their team that annoy me 😠

The progression of the likes of Brennan and Dan Thompson is down to their ability and not down to the RS system. The system doesn’t even have an age restriction? We’re talking about the top flight of the sport in this country and we’re throwing riders into the lion’s den and then coming up with race formulas in matches to ‘protect’ them. It’s a professional sport with paying customers and the participants have to be good enough. That’s the real world. You can’t say the RS riders need to be given a chance because they are all riding in the second tier. As/when/if they are ready, they can step up.

I thought the track held up well. I can't remember the last time I saw a meeting and the track maintenance didn't happen until after heat 7. The speed the meeting played out at was the best I've been to in a long time. Racing was good and if it's all better than that in the evening then I'll come all season. I was going to be a regular at Lynn as I'm about an hour from each of you. Great value for money with a basic race card. You have a new fan.

Very enjoyable first trip Scunthorpe. Great racing, 100x better than what I've been watching at Leicester and the meeting was run superbly well. I will be back. 👍

Lamberts getting worse.

I get your point, but 2 points away defeats are very useful when all the trophies are decided by aggregate victories. I thought Scunthorpe would be a good home team so before the match, would have settled for a 2 point loss (and a 4 points home win). But having 12 race wins, will no doubt feel like an opportunity lost for the Bears. Don't expect Workington to do any better away from home, so think it's advantage Bears in the BSN group.

I am not in any way confident that this will be successful due to past experience with other venues, but it won't be through lack of finance. The stock car person who has had the 'offer on the table' from day one is a multi millionaire who owns one of the biggest vegetable wholesale companies in the UK. His interest in reopening Brandon is purely based on his sporting interests, not turning a profit.

Agree it should be a 2 man run off.But that’s Speedway,nothing is simple.

££££sss

Personally I'd have kept the 3-2-1-0-1-2-3-4 scoring system which awarded the away team two points for a draw anyway. One of the best ideas British Speedway has come up with in recent years and they scrapped it!

Can I suggest, if you don't have time to compose an email, that you use an AI to compose one for you, the results are quite remarkable! I've used Google Gemini (you'll need a Google account to use this) and entered: "create an email to Rugby Council in support of the restoration of Coventry Stadium, Brandon for speedway and stock car racing and other motor sports together with other community uses in the new Rugby Local Plan. Planning permission should not be granted for development proposals which would conflict with these objectives. Also include the need for leisure activities for local and national people". The text in bold is taken from the Save Coventry Speedway website and I've just added a bit to the end, you may want to replace with your own thoughts for a different text, the more you put in, the more you'll get out. The result: Dear Rugby Council, Subject: Restoration of Coventry Stadium, Brandon, and the Rugby Local Plan I am writing to express my strong support for the restoration of Coventry Stadium, Brandon, for the purpose of speedway, stock car racing, and other motorsports, alongside diverse community uses. I urge the council to ensure that the new Rugby Local Plan supports this objective and to reject any planning applications that conflict with it. The restoration of Coventry Stadium holds immense value for several reasons: Preservation of Heritage: The stadium is a historic venue for motorsports, holding a special place in the hearts of many local and national enthusiasts. Boost to Local Economy: Restoring the stadium would attract visitors from across the country, stimulating the local economy and supporting businesses. Community Benefits: The stadium can serve as a hub for a variety of community activities, providing valuable leisure and recreational opportunities for residents of all ages. There is a need for leisure activities for local and national people. Tourism: The stadium has the potential to attract national and international tourists. Granting planning permission for development proposals that would hinder the restoration of the stadium would be a great loss for the community and for the future of motorsports in the region. It is crucial that the Rugby Local Plan reflects the importance of this facility. I urge you to consider the significant benefits of restoring Coventry Stadium, to ensure its inclusion and support within the Rugby Local Plan, and to guarantee that all planning decisions align with the best interests of the community. Thank you for your time and consideration of this important matter. Sincerely, [Your Name] [Your Address] [Your Email] [Your Phone Number (Optional)] Obviously, give it a proof read and tweak if necessary and send to localplan@rugby.gov.uk

How about we all turn the TV off after heat 20 and just keep our own scorecards? Whatever goes on after heat 20 is their own circus 🤔

Really shows what the GP’s are missing regarding Artum and Emil.