szkocjasid

Prediction: Leicester 47 Ipswich 43

I'll go Sheffield 51-39 Lynn

Leibmann seems to be a particularly bad gater, so with Armadale not being an easy track to pass on, Monarchs should score well in heats 2, 8 & 12. Always interesting to see how new foreigners will take to the tighter tracks.

Edinburgh really should take advantage of Workington's weak reserves, especially as they have to take a r/r outing. Time for Coles (especially) & James to shine? Mind you Sam McGurk will have had a few rides round Armadale this year, so could pick up a few points.

Gotcha. The 75% average is for guests, not team positioning, so Sedgmen rides at 1, doesn't get a r/r outing. Actually helps Lynn, they're better off being able to give Basso an extra ride than Sedgmen.

There's only restrictions when a rider is "withholding his services" so as long as Klindt doesn't return to action abroad but say he's not fit enough to ride here, Lynn should have a facility till the end of the season (as I understand the rules).

Clever idea

So the club doesn't want to use r/r as it doesn't work with the current team, but neither does using guests or having a full strength team. Birmingham are awful whatever the situation, don't think r/r makes them any worse tbh. If Pawlicki rode to his potential, would make them stronger (if the team manager gave him extra rides that is)

Totally agree with you, yet often managers use r/r at 2 for the second heat leader. Waste of an extra ride for your number one to beat a RS imo.

“We look forward to welcoming Michael into the Brummies team though and we’ll look at where the team are at when Stevie has recovered from his illness.” When Worrall is fit they'll only have the choice of keeping MPT or dropping him for Worrall. They won't have the option of bringing Worrall back in place of Lampart for example.

I think r/r could work fine at 5. Use weakest option (Becker) in heat 4 as he meets a reserve, then use strongest option, once you know who that is, in heat 13.

As happens many times in speedway, rule A will be thought up to avoid a certain situation occuring, then a new flaw will occur because of rule A, so rule B is added. This continues till everyone is confused & no one is totally sure of the rules anymore.

That's what he said could happen if he came back too soon. As far as I'm aware, as long as he waits till the injury is properly healed there's no long term risk.

100% agree, having Dan back back for the play-offs has to be priority. No point coming back 50% fit and aggravating his injury.

Looks like his average will drop for August though.

That Poland feel they can do what they want & no one has been able to challenge them!

Probably because all of the Leicester team are doing well. I've gotta give credit to Leicester here for not dropping anyone.

An away defeat won't hurt Poole in the slightest so why not use r/r and give your own riders extra races!

I don't think a Polish club has ever had to sack a rider, because no-one ever stands up to them to find out. If a 3 x world Champion (Woffinden) can't / won't tell his Polish club he can't race when injured, what chance has anyone else got!

Firstly & most importantly, get well soon Connor. Now for the rest, if he was signed off by a Doctor I'm sure Redcar would get a facility till he was fit to return. But as he's decided to sit out the rest of the season, I think that counts as "witholding his services" so Redcar would get a 28 day facility followed by a 75% guest. This is the downside of having a transfer window, through no fault of their own Redcar could have a rider leave them, not be allowed to sign a replacement but also not be allowed a facility to replace him.

Could not agree with @Bojangles any more. I'm sure Starke & Roynon enjoy riding Speedway and as long as someone is willing to pay them to ride, why should they retire?

I would suggest that's more to do woth teams getting weakened, while the prices go up. Otherwise every sport that has an "off season" would lose some of their crowd because they found other things to do. Doesn't seem to happen to Premiership football. Now I think of it, Polish Extraliga clubs only have 7 home league meetings each year. Topped up with U24 racing etc. British fans probably get more league racing than any other country to watch.

Totally agree, for example what to Edinburgh & Glasgow fans do to occupy their Friday nights between October / November & March / April, they obviously have to find something else to do. Yet they don't stop coming the following season because they've found a new past time.

I don't really understand that, surely fans go to watch speedway because they enjoy it / love the sport. Why would you stop going just because they don't race as often as you want them too? Are people really saying "I want to watch 20/25 matches a year, it's not worth going if there's only 10/15"?

There's no major reason for Cairns to stick to 3 matches to keep a 3.00 average for next season imo. Even if he signs for a club & gains a new average doesn't mean it'll hurt him the following season, both Jody Scott & Ashton Boughen got new averages but still found clubs wanting to sign them in their first full season. Probably will have the pick of any club if he's a 3.00 rider next year, but I'm sure some clubs would still take him on as a heat leader too.