mikebv

Was it a gate that was broken?

Poland have huge crowds, full of passionate fans, making loads of noise, with a bona fide justified emotional attachment to their team.. All willing their team on to try and win a competition that has all the world class competitors, kudos, credibility, a wider public awareness through large media coverage, and big financial rewards... Over here, we measure the entertainment level of the meeting as the key determinant of whether it was a "good night out" or not, because there is pretty much nothing else to go on, given none of the above descriptions apply to a UK domestic meeting..

KK definitely didn't want to get involved then...

Wroclaw too good... That top five cannot be far off the best ever assembled...

Cracking race... Lebedev is one of those riders who always keeps a race interesting...

Was Ht14 a metaphorical kick in the bollox for Pedersen and Jakobsen from their Team Manager?

If I was them, I would avoid Thursday nights like the plague.. Poland will cause havoc at any given moment, and meeting after meeting will have riders missing.. BSN, and the Speedeay Star, to a fair old job considering the infrastructure of the sport that they have to deal with...

Indeed... I believe his leg has almost fully grown back already...

One of my all time favourites.. Saw him once "fall off", but kept hold of the bike whilst he slid along the track, and then, all in one motion without stopping, lifted the bike up with him astride it, and rode off down the home straight.. Unfortunately Ronnie Correy had seen him "fall off" from a few yards behind so had laid his bike down in a similar slide to Bobby to avoid contact.. Correy waved to the ref who stopped the race and excluded Bobby.. He was not impressed... Last heat of the season 1993, Monmore Green....

Fluski?

Is he injured?

A very crap night may make their average a good one to have.. And if on a guarantee then even more reason to do it...

Saturday nights are fine as flights on Sunday morning.. Leicester ran with decent crowds at Div 2 level on Saturdays..

Getting rid of tenants so they have an opportunity of a seamless sell off further down the line, with no legal challenges...?

It's the opposition having to do the same too... League 2 and 3 is Poland is full of Div 2 Heat Leaders who would simply be unavailable... Brum having seven Brits good enough to build a team with, all without Polish contracts, wouldnt be achievable I would suggest as other teams will also be using the same riders in their septets.. Add in guestfest after guestfest due to every team no doubt having a rider in Poland, and very quickly that business model would collapse..

Slick and dusty.... Usually much better than that...

Some quality riders on display tonight, even without Freddie...

Keep them away from any sheep...

As we will say forever... You need a large, noisy, enthusiastic crowd to add atmosphere and make the event look like it actually means something to any potential watching sports fan.... Baffles me why promotions who get given such an opportunity to advertise what they do for two whole hours, seem quite happy to not bother selling themselves to a wider audience....

If they had someone with a drum and someone with a mega phone like the Poles do, all you would hear is.. "It's too noisy"... "I can't see with him with the drum in the way, and I always stand here".. "Where's me tartan blanket?"...

Singapore is still open for trading...

8 point swing there from Ellis.. Form a 1-5 to a 5-1 in the blink of an eye...

Not quite as good as the meeting from Torun yesterday is it? In fact the only similarity appears to be that the camera man is filming from somewhere in Poland...

The 2nd Tier should have two British U21 riders per team ring fenced for 3 rides a night each... And then move up organically as they progress, (or not as the case may be).. The Poles reap what they saw in this regard.....

Since I returned to watching Speedway in 1988, there has been Screen, Havelock, Louis, Loram, Woffy, Lambert and Bewley that I have seen their whole career unfold, with all of them clearly being of a much higher standard than their contemporaries at a similar age.. You do have a certain "glide path" it seems which suggests you really need to be a top league HL within three or four years to continue your progress to the top, with a No1 berth five or six years in being the target.. If your not in GP's seven or eight years or so into your career then your level is pretty much set.. Not many do a "Jason Doyle" and almost overnight, it appeared, go from reserve to World Class... Looking at how many Poles, (and other Eastern Europeans), Swedes and Danes are coming through at U24 level, the UK lads have some serious challenges on to break through to the higher levels..