Halifaxtiger

You're absolutely right One day they will learn that you simply can't have best interests of speedway and a rulebook. One or the other but not both.

Sounds like he needs to read his own rules before spouting off: 9.8 RIDERS MATCH AVERAGES (see SR 16.2 for Definitions) and GRADINGS 19.8.1 Riders new to National League racing will be given an assessed MA of 3.00 19.8.1.1 Riders qualifying by UK Patriality will be given an assessed MA of 5.00 9.9.2 The Initial Team Declarations may include: 19.9.2.1 A Rider with a PL MA of 6.00 or below i f not declared in a PL 1–7 at the start of the season. 19.9.2.2 A current PL Rider under 25 years-old with a PL MA of 4.00 or below at the start of the Season. 19.9.2.5 All Riders must hold a UK Passport or have UK Patriality. Wilson-Dean came in on a 5.00 because he qualifies for the NL on patriality grounds - absolutely nothing to do with national championships - which aren't even mentioned(nor, for that matter,are racing licences). Spiller holds a British passport and is a new rider in the NL. That's a 3.00. Bloody pathetic and motivated not by the best interests of British Speedway but by spite and jealousy. Then again, when did the rules of the sport ever dictate a riders average when a member of the BSPA wants them on something else ?

You should have stood on the third bend, it was much more interesting. The tannoy wasn't working so no-one had a clue what was going on, which prompted a great deal of ridiculous and bizarre speculation.

For the benefit of the ignorant, why is a 3.00 incorrect ? (no side here, I genuinely don't know).

I must admit I am wondering whether I was at a different meeting. True, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife but, aside from Cook's furious win in heat 14 and Nielsen's brilliant win from behind in heat 12, almost every race was decided by bend 2. The track certainly wasn't dangerous but equally it certainly wasn't good either. Some might have felt that the events of heats 13 & 14 might have added to the atmosphere but most where I was standing (third bend) thought it made the meeting degenerate into a pantomime. You could get away with the poor quality of the racing or what happened during those races but not both, especially when the meeting took 2 and a half hours to run. Where I was standing people were streaming from the stadium before heat 15, one using the word 'farce' very loudly. A Cradley fan voiced his displeasure at the 'sh&thole' of a track, while two lads next to me (one in his meeting of the season, another first timer altogether) confirmed they wouldn't be going again. One point - which I am sure will picked up - is that the starting marshal's error with the flags could cost the Aces a play off spot. In the first re run Nicholls was second, which would have given them an extra point and lost Swindon one. Ward was brilliant but for me the man of the match was Nielsen.

Very good meeting with the highlight being a cracking heat 15. Buxton are a tidy little side and no-ones pushover home or away.

You forgot that I sponsor two riders

Not in your league, mate. The only ones I know match you, Sunglasses Dave and the rest of the Tigers travel club are the Devils on Tour. The difference is I pick and choose my meetings based upon which ones look good and what the weather is like. I also don't travel to matches knowing my team is at the bottom of the league and is going to get stuffed or its likely to be called off. You and 'Dad's Army'(sorry, guys, couldn't resist it )do. That makes you dedicated to your team more than speedway, perhaps, but dedicated all the same. Two of the best sights I have seen this season are you lot at Rye House (before heat 15, that is) and the Plymouth boys at Somerset. For a single journey, nothing will beat Paulco's incredible trip from Glasgow to Newport on the bus. Amazing Certainly wouldn't take it as such because what you say is absolutely true. It is about time and funds and I am very lucky to be reasonably comfortably off and have a brilliant boss. I completely agree that just because I have the funds and the time doesn't necessarily mean I am more dedicated than the fan who only goes to watch his team at home every week - my old mate Spin King springs to mind. He's as passionate about his club and the sport as anyone I know.

Can't claim to be a Plymouth fan....... but I am a fan of their track, their promotion and their supporters because all are among the best in the business.

I fear the 600 crowd figures are about right although for my last visit - against Peterborough - it was a lot higher, with the welcome sight of cars parked on the green outside. Why that is the case I am not so sure. True, the teams haven't lived up to expectation in the last few seasons but they have still been pretty decent, the racing is good and the presentation equally so. Entry, programme and car parking is the cheapest in the PL (taking into account that you can park safely outside) - £15 (compare that to Edinburgh's £21.50). The promotion have definitely tried hard to make speedway a paying success. Fingers crossed that things can be turned round.

Cracking meeting with the highlights being heat 10 and heat 11. In heat 10, Holder had attempted to pass Bowen and Mellgren for three laps when he got outside Bowen on bend two of lap four. He then produced an astonishing inside dive on bend 3 to pass Mellgren and win the race. Great stuff. In heat 11 the hugely impressive Kennett was pushed out on the second bend by Risager which allowed Simota through. Kennett then hunted them both down, only just being beaten on the line. More great stuff. Very good to see SBA back to its excellent best (will someone give Messrs Tatum and Pearson a nudge, please) and huge credit to the promotion and track staff given that it had been raining continuously for 17 hours when it finally stopped at 11am yesterday.

Agreed. Gomolski and North both pulled off moves that were in my opinion border line.

I can see that the attendance would have been affected but, to me, that's no ground to call the meeting off. The only ground is if the weather has been such that it cant be run. I am in favour of early postponements because they benefit everyone and save promotions a fortune. Yesterday, though, was too early.Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I said that yesterday morning . Speedway also had to stop relying solely on met office predictions.Not only did they get it wrong yesterday, they did so disastrously when others got it spot on. This may yet have serious repercussions for Swindon.

My first visit to Poole for several seasons and I thought it wad a very entertaining one. You could tell who the riders named (or more accurately not named) in Matt Fords programme notes were..........

Its always easy to be critical in these situations and I am in favour of early call offs but this one seems a little premature. Met office might be predicting rain but last night they were also predicting a deluge and that just hasnt happened. What's worse XC weather and metcheck are not predicting the same amount of rain. Would it have been so damaging to wait until lunch time when the morning rain could have been assessed and updated predictions viewed ?

Edinburgh were very impressive but they shouldn't get carried away with this result - Somerset aren't as invincible at home as they once were with Plymouth tearing them apart two weeks ago. Riss was especially impressive and Cook imperious. Wright and Starke fought for every point and Grajczonek got a couple of wins but the rest were poor. Kurtz looked nothing like a top PL performer. What was most disappointing was that the weather was perfect, we had at least potentially a cracking meeting, there was a huge crowd, it was televised ......and the track was rubbish.

Genuine question and a very good one....but with a very simple answer. Neutrals like you and I go for the racing, home fans put winning before That. Few home defeats and they are gone into the night. Scunny lost 5 of their first 6. That's why they might close.

As long as a track isn't dangerous, I couldn't care less what riders think. Its what spectators think that counts because they are paying customers, not paid employees. Definitely the best in the country, and I don't need stats to prove that because I have the evidence from my own eyes. Even a good meeting at EWR is slightly disappointing because of the quality of some I have seen. I am up to almost 50 meetings this season at 21 different tracks and Scunthorpe v Ipswich & Scunthorpe v Peterborough are the two best I have seen. Given that it is the best, that they keep delay to a minimum (no stupid and needless intervals there) and that they have Mr Godfrey on the mic, it will be a crying shame if they aren't racing next season.

In my experience, that's simply not true and I'd say Plymouth is one of the best racing tracks in the country. Last Saturday wasn't up to their usual standard because following on from Wright's last bend outside pass of Lanham and Risager's inside move on Worrall the dirt line moved to the outside and once a rider got on that there was no chance of passing him. Whoever says that about Newman wasn't watching heat 10. He spent most of that race looking left for Wright.

Albert's mediocre description above is far more accurate and Newcastle only really did anything at the back end of the meeting. To be fair Aarnio's bike problems didn't help. Disappointed with the meeting. It was just pretty good instead of the brilliant I have usually come to expect.

That's true. But what that astonishing result showed was just how good Plymouth can be.

To be fair, experience tends to suggest you are right. You are also right about the 'in' thing, too, and reducing prices for TV meetings (I believe Somerset are doing precisely that next Tuesday). What suggests to me that cost is an issue is the number of people - mostly ex speedway fans - who raise value for money as an issue. That can be true, but I'd maintain that speedway matches are transformed by a tactical ride from nothing meetings to exceptional ones and I doubt if anyone would disagree with that. I am also struggling precisely to see how tactical rides are unfair because to be so they must give an inherent advantage to one club over another. All clubs know about them before the season and before a match and all can use them. As I said before, over a number of seasons the number of times a team benefits from one and loses out in the same way probably evens out. It might be said that Edinburgh benefit from them because of the presence of Craig Cook, while Plymouth lose out because their number 1 is Kyle Newman. That, of itself, balances out because Plymouth have Todd Kurtz and Sam Simota at reserve (and can take four additional rides if necessary) while Edinburgh have Rob Branford and Max Clegg. I think its just that the concept of allowing double points is so alien compared to other sports that people (both in and out of speedway) regard it as unfair and, indeed, ridiculous. As I (and indeed others) have said all along, you simply can't make comparisons with other sports. One football supporter once mocked speedway to me, saying as if a goal should count double. He seemed to overlook the fact that occasionally in football it does.

I don't think the TR rule is unfair to the extent that everyone knows about it before the season and each meeting starts. In addition, its likely that each team has benefitted by it and suffered from it in reasonably equal measure. It shouldn't be forgotten that speedway has had this rule in one form or another for 50 years, and there's a very good reason why it has it. I have certainly seen several meetings this season which would have been dead and buried by heat 7 without it, and no doubt if it was ditched there would be people complaining about that, too. Part of the problem is that it is unique to speedway, but any comparison with other sports just has no validity at all. When someone from football describes speedway as 'mickey mouse' (or similar) because of it, my reaction is usually to laugh at the offside rule. That's not because its ridiculous for football, but the thought of it being applied to speedway most certainly is. There's no difference. I, too, have agreed with virtually everything that Bewitcher has said on this thread but I'd take issue over cost - it is a relevant factor. I certainly don't think its a coincidence that Lakeside had their biggest attendance of the season when entry was just £5.

If its anything like the last two, this is not to be missed.

Couple of other things about Sunday's meeting. Its the third one I have been to at Buxton and, to be honest, I have enjoyed them all. I have been very critical in the past - to the extent that I didn't go at all last season - but this year its been much better and I can give no greater compliment other than to say I'll be back for more. For some, eating critical words might prove to be a bit unpalatable. For me, its a very tasty dish indeed. I have always said that you can't pass on the outside at Hi Edge - a view that James Shanes blew apart on Sunday. Its probably more accurate to say that you don't see much passing on the outside there for the sole reason that riders don't try it very often.