OldRacer

I think we are agreeing here. Generally finishing in the 20s in the final averages puts you squarely in the 3rd heat leader bracket in an 8 team league.

King is what he is. A 3rd heat leader worth around his average, not much more or less. Looking at his stats throughout his career, it is pretty consistent. I'm not knocking him, but he isn't going to turn into a world beater or heat 15 difference maker. I'd be fine with him in a team, but with realistic expectations.

Quite right, you absolutely can't count wildcards and reserves. There have been some awful riders over the years filling those berths.

Averages are based on 4 rides per rider, therefore 28 rides or 14 heats. Therefore status quo would be an aggregate average of 42 points.

Great ambition shown by Leicester and very encouraging for the league next year. Hope the other promoters show as much willingness to go out and sign good/promising riders. Now, how do you block posters who confuse their opinions with facts?!

Riders will take the best contracts. 'Loving' a club doesn't extend beyond the right pay check. Ownership of assets is nonsense. The sooner a high profile rider pushes back, the sooner the whole house of cards collapses.

You've said this about a couple of top Poles. Why would this be different to any other rider with a Polish contract?

There's a huge capital outlay to be competitive in the GPs. It doesn't fall into place overnight or off the back of doing well in league racing.

That was my reaction to seeing that side. Klindt would be, at best, okay to bring back, but no thanks to Andersen.

Well done Leicester. Great signing for British Speedway.

Exactly the same chance - zero. Do you think perhaps Man Utd and the rest would have tried this if it had any chance of success? Sure you can go and play for Real on a free, but if you ever come back to the premiership you can only play for us? Any 'ownership' of riders with expired contracts is illegal.

Comparing gross income to a salary is naive and wrong. Each rider is effectively running a small business throughout the season and the money earned is the business income. There are significant overheads from equipment, consumables, etc which must be covered before the rider as an individual sees a penny. It'd be interesting to know the ratio of 'staff' costs to other overheads. For example in my line of work, about a third of our business income goes on salaries. I would expect that motorsports would have much higher overheads so the ratio would be lower.

Pardon my ignorance, but how does the asset system survive in a post-Bosman era?

Presumably Tim Sugar protested the result before heat two started. He was pretty good with the rule book. It doesn't sound like a protest was made in a timely fashion in this instance.

I subscribe to the electronic version, but hate the Exact Editions app with a passion. I run it on my kindle and it crashes every few pages on average. It doesn't do the content justice which is a real shame. I am considering ditching my subscription just because of the poor platform. To the guests discussion, I am fine with guests. Running meetings with juniors riding in heat leader spots is much worse for the sport in my opinion. I support the race jacket rather than the individual and with teams churning regularly throughout the season, the loyalty angle seems laughable.

I'd be interested to see stats on this. I don't have a strong feeling either way, but there have always been plenty of nasty injuries in speedway.

Looks like a decent meeting and it's good to see Leicester competitive, even with a number of guests on both sides. BTs loss was definitely Rye's gain. Glad to see Scotty going well.

The worst possible news for BT viewers.

For a neutral fan, this is lovely to see. After Ford's shenanigans the last few years, seeing KK score a maximum from reserve against Poole is comedy of the highest order. Bravo to all concerned.

My favourites from my era Dave Mullett Per Jonsson Jan Andersson Mitch Shirra Matej Zagar Todd Wiltshire Armando Castagna I remember watched Lee R's first few meetings and seeing him way off the pace. The potential was there though. I loved and learned a lot from arnieg's book. Gutted I only saw Anders at Jan Andersson's testimonial.

What an exciting signing. Better than I thought Leicester could come up with, so well done to them.

Not disqualified, ineligible for the championship. Which is in the rule. Obviously the powers that be have interpreted the rule differently, but trying to pretend that isn't a reasonable reading of the rule is deliberately obtuse.

WC is the rider with the most points who is eligible for the championship

Great meeting on a superb track. Wonderful stuff. The only question for Tai is whether he can join the all time greats. It certainly looks like he can.

I would prefer to watch other riders, so would prefer him to retire. I strongly suspect he will not take my views into account when making that decision, but that's what I would like.