AFCB Wildcat

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vd0xv7nw2o Apologies if it's been posted elsewhere, but this was on the BBC news page today, in case anyone missed it.

My thinking is that by awarding 20, 18, 16 for the podium & points scored over 5 rides for the rest, is this. In my opinion, the LCQ should be just that. A last chance to prove that you can beat the guys who finished in front of you in qualifying. That chance is the reward for winning the LCQ. If you give 16 points for trailing in last in the final, there's the potential to enhance a 6 point total by a further 10 points for winning just one race in 7 when a 15 point max in qualifying can only be enhanced by 5 by winning the final. Going back to risk versus reward, I think that the the final would be much more competitive when there's potentially more points to gain by finishing 3rd, rather than one point difference to finishing last. I think the problem that the FIM and others had, was when the guys who were holding the trophies & spraying champagne were outscored. I don't think many would have a problem with the last place rider getting only his qualifying score.

I was about to post something very similar. Having seen a few rounds now, it doesn't sit right with me that a rider scoring 6 points over his five rides can trump a rider who has scored 11 by finishing higher in an LCQ. My preferred option would be 20-18-16 for top 3 and everyone else getting the points from their 5 heats. Why score extra points for finishing last in the final?

I'm sure you'll be back next year, along with 6399 others. I think Dean's point is that no matter how good the racing is, and even if all the problems encountered this year are resolved, how do you attract the missing thousands when you only have a 6400 capacity and there isn't room for them? The event can't grow at Belle Vue unless the capacity is increased. Unfortunately that can't be justified for a once a year event.

Maybe you should have asked him instead of your barbed comment.

No need to apologise. Your post was easy enough to understand. Unfortunately the forum is plagued with clever cnuts who think that their superior grasp of spelling or grammar make their opinions more valid. Unfortunately the grammar police don't have the intelligence to realise how boring they are, or that their attempts to demean others contribute nothing to the discussion.

Are you calling the temporary stand the big stand? If so, I reckon it's around 3400. Yes, I was sad enough to count the dots 😁 Stadium info that I've found online says 1800 seats in the main stand & 1200 standing in the south stand. That would make it 6400, which ties in with Wiki & other sources which say 6500 capacity with temporary stands.

The million or so people that attended football matches on the day of the Cardiff GP maybe? 🤔 I would suggest that there are a significant amount of fans that follow both their football and Speedway teams. Also Speedway fans who no longer have a track to attend, who usually went to Cardiff, but opted to watch their football team instead. Just looking at some of the user names on this forum, which is a small cross section of fans, shows a few with an affinity to a football team. Out of the small number of Speedway teams left, Manchester, Sheffield, Poole (Bournemouth) Leicester, Ipswich, Birmingham, Oxford & Plymouth had teams playing in the Premier league or EFL championship that day. Myself, along with 5 others who always went to Cardiff opted to go to Forest instead, to watch Bournemouth. Shovvy said on here, that he did too. I can't believe that out of that million that went to football that day, that we are the only ones that would have attended Cardiff if it was at it's traditional June/July (pre football season) date.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was referring to last years GP. Nobody will convince me that going head to head with the opening day of the football season didn't significantly affect the attendance.

It's a shame that whoever thought it was a good idea to pitch last year's Cardiff GP against the opening day of the Premier League season & a full football league programme didn't have the same foresight. Madness!!

I'd say that risk v reward comes in to play whatever the format. Many times I've watched team speedway on TV, where a team are comfortably in front and sit on a 2nd & 3rd with the commentators saying "3-3's will do them all night long." My point was that with this new GP format, it makes it more important to fight for every point than in last years format and the LCQ's are a lot harder to qualify from than the old semis. I'll admit that 10th place qualification didn't sit right with me when it was first announced. Having seen how it works though, I prefer it to last years format.

I did remember a comment like that, so I skimmed back through it and nothing like that was said in any of Zmarzliks heats. Do you mean heat 14 when Kurtz was chasing down Kvech for a lap? Kelvin said "I thought for a moment Kurtz was going to take the chance, but maybe now he's thinking why do it? 2 points will be better than none" .... Chris then said during the replay, that Kurtz probably thought, I'm not going to hurt myself here, it's not worth it. Not unreasonable in the circumstances, seeing that 2 points would keep him a point clear at the top of the leader board with a race to go, but ending up on his arse would relegate him to a LCQ position. No different from a rider in the old style world final not pushing for a win when 2 points would be enough to take the title. During the meeting, Kelvin also said "you can't throw in the towel or cruise around in this format, because every point will earn you a better gate position" Gate one was clearly dominant. Only two third places & one last, which was a retirement. 12 firsts & 8 second places, so clearly a huge advantage. Having said that, you wouldn't bet against Zmarzlik in any gate! I don't get the comments saying that it's boring because he has no challengers. If it was Lambert or Bewley dominating in the same fashion, it would be a different story.

I wasn't sure about the new format, but surely it discourages riders from taking it easy in the qualifying heats compared to last years format. It would certainly be a brave strategy, with 8 riders chasing just 2 places in a 'must win' last chance race. Especially when there was such a disparity in the gate positions on Saturday. Surely, the finishing positions in the qualifying heats are even more vital now, in order to avoid a grave yard gate in the LCQ, when only a win will suffice?

I don't think that there is a single poster on here that doesn't understand, or would dispute any of that. If the event was financially unviable at Cardiff, then it had to go. I've no problem with that, I don't expect anyone to suffer financial loss for my convenience. It has to be said though, that Belle Vue has a similar problem to Cardiff, in that it has to hire a substantial amount of temporary seating, which has made ticket prices significantly higher than Cardiff. After hearing lots of "good riddance to rip off Cardiff" comments, the alternative that these people wanted has been proved to be more expensive, in both accommodation & ticketing costs. Imagine the meltdown on here if Cardiff had raised ticket prices to £120 in order to make it work with 20k people. Yet, because Belle Vue have managed to sell out a 1800 seat grandstand at that price, we've got people on here saying that it proves that they've got the pricing right. The original intention when putting the GP's in big stadiums was to raise the profile of the events and bring it to a bigger audience. Initially, It was successful but ultimately it has failed. For me that's sad, and the question has to be asked, why? Is the product that bad? "Fans just want to see close racing on properly prepared track" we're told. If that was the case, Belle Vue would be packed every week, but unfortunately it's not, and can't justify a permanent increase in capacity. Something is obviously badly wrong when the Principality gets 40k people to watch some pickup trucks with big wheels, driving over obstacles, but a world championship Speedway event is relegated to an audience of 6400. There were more people at Dean Court last week to watch Bournemouth's women's football team. Moving the event to Belle Vue may be a necessity, but I'm with IainB on this one, it's beyond me how it can be seen as a positive.

Oh sorry, I forgot you get so precious. I just found it amusing that it was assumed my concern was the beating sun, when I was more concerned about needing a sou'wester & oil skins than AmbreSolaire. 😘