old bob at herne bay

I’ll not get involved with the discussion about the relative strengths of CL teams versus PL, as I have heard it all before. Surprised Matt and Dan don’t organise an inter league challenge at Wimborne Road......oh hang on they “dropped down” to save money. But amalgamation ain’t gonna work. BSPA ltd have cooked that goose with doubling up down. Where would all the extra riders come from? Even if watering down is accepted, there isn’t a surplus of rabbits in the NDL capable of filling reserve slots in the new SL ( Shovlar League) We already have teams full of guests R/R just to fulfil the current UK leagues set up. Unless of course the SL is proposing 4 man teams like they have in minnow nations speedway?

Whats going on down at Arlington ? never a fan of the track, but the presentation has always been one of the best. This season the track prep has been given to " an inexperienced team" quoted by Trevor Gear one the the team managers. Botched attempts at rigging the start grids have been found out. The " announcer" Kev Coombes who I used to rate highly seems to have become error prone.... and this week I read the starting gate wasn't tested and failed to operate delaying the meeting for an hour , followed by the tractor running into the safety fence. Green Light starts. Amateur Hour. Fixtures appear to be arranged every week to clash with one or more of the much heralded " home grown" Arlington talent riding somewhere else. Coupled with rumours of a "new" promotion taking over next season ... and going premiership (on a midweek race day ??? good luck with that one), one wonders whether Ian Jordan has maybe decided to try something different.... things were never like this under the auspices of the late, great Bob Dugard. Like him or loath him, he could prepare a track surface for the home side, and didn't hit the safety fence in HIS tractor.

If I were under threat of redundancy from my employer, who announces they might not last the season, not sure I would be feeling like giving it 100% ????

...not to mention any fallen away riders laying on the track being attended to by the St John’s medics. Graded to within inches of where they laid.

Waco, agreed, will be good to see how young Mulford copes. Hope he keeps his head and doesn’t try TOO hard.

Excellent. If well enough, will make the effort to see this Tuesday with league points at stake. Kent look competitive for the first time this season.

You can add pull down the tapes before each heat and at some tracks remove a bit of hardware used to steady the tapes after the race has started.

I am sure Edwards will find a reserve berth in another CL club to give hime more meetings that this year amateur NDL which runs so erratically. Good to see Ablitt getting a chance after Edwards sacking. I remember seeing Nathan Surprised that the stadium owners (C. Dugard & Sons Ltd) ?? wont allow double headers. Seems they don't like speedway anymore ? Or maybe complints from their neighbour a mile down the lane. ?

THJ ..... sounds good to me ....... Gilkesey left at reserve to carry JPB in the reserve races would work, and Morley has been doing OK this season. Just needs Heepsey to get fit and scoring some points.

So Bacon and Hurry's points to play with now for the new mystery replacments.

Sad to hear of any club in difficulties, but running speedway and attracting crowds in city centres is a challenge. Not sure Birmingham has ever attracted decent crowds in the modern era. Surprising really as Cradley, Wolves and formerly Coventry all run successfully. First meeting of the season set the tone , with an un prepared track, punters kept waiting for hours ……

Even with 2 poor guests (2 points between them ) Poole win away by 14 points. Heeps is clearly still injured. Hurry really has had his day and if he wants to race should consider an NDL team. Morley doing as well as you can reasonably expect, and far too much pressure on young Gilkes every week . That wooden spoon should be in the trophy cabinet at Sittingbourne very shortly.

Don't we have enought problems with bike tyres at the moment without considering changing everyone over to a petrol engine ? Such a move would have to come from theFIM I guess to ensure ALL speedway ran on petrol engines , or we would have even higher costs for riders havign to have 2 sets of engines ! Dont see any savings for riders only increased costs. Don't see anything but negatives for changing to petrol when the world is heding towards electric powered engines ........ mmm now there's a thought (only joking)

Have to say Mike.Butler, I always expect to pay to watch 2 teams of 7 riders racing. With the exception of the lad Lawrence last Saturday , seems that absences from taking part are rife. Which led to my comment about the league being "Mickey Mouse" The sort of behaviour you would expect in an Amateur speedway meeting at Lydd or Iwade. Glad you found the meeting entertaining, and you clearly enjoy cheaper admission charges to your NDL racing than I am able to watch here in Kent.

Met Office forecast doesn’t look too promising .....heavy rain 1500-1600 ☹️. Hope they are wrong . Kent will be up against it with a rider short and no satisfactory cover for R/R. Heeps needs to score some points and prove his fitness......

You could start by looking at offering some alternative formats for meetings...... do we have to have every race of 4 laps ? do we have to have a standing start ? Does every meeting have to have 500cc only bikes? Would the TV companies be happy to show a speedway meeting of say 45 minutes with 3 laps per race and say 4 man teams 8 heat meetings and get the riders out for the next race as soon as the previous race was finished? Open up the bars and snack bars ... put up a big screen somewhere showing action replays of all the incidents ...... Go ahead topsoil and do some blue sky thinking..... everyone thought the original 40 overs one day Sunday cricket was a joke at first. Until it appeared on the TV every week and filled the grounds. First 500 tickets sold online at the T20 get a free beer at Canterbury ...... seems to be a popular idea. Stadium owners would be happy to see more punters enjoying their facilities and eating at the tracks food outlets.

Got to agree with Uk_martin on his point re quality of product. As an example T20 cricket down here in Kent - all the remaining matches have sold out ....... its £25 a ticket and £7 for 5-15 year olds. Party atmosphere, flames leap int othe air every time someone hits a boundary. Day night games add to the atmosphere. Cricket officianados scoff at the crash, bang, wallop, limited overs white ball game , but it has saved cricket from the abyss. Watching a 3 or 4 day county match is not everyones cup of tea . Someone has gone in and sorted out Cricket with choices of format, whilst speedway is stuck with 15 heats every match 4 riders 4 laps per race .............. yawn. IF the product was moved into the 21st century, interst woudl be increased , crowds would increase , and maybe prices would reflect better value for money?

East end fan ….. you are correct I was NOT at Arlington. Not been there since the days of the Lakeside Hammers.

This NDL is all a bit "Mickey Mouse" cannot really be taken seriously when most of the teams seem to regard it as a chance for some practice. Would have no problems with that if it were free to watch ...... but some think its worth £15 a meeting :-( :-( Yesterday evenings affair between half a team of seasulls and a royals team missing one their key riders, totally unsatisfactory for the fans who paid good money expectiong to watch 2 teams of 7 riders.

You have to go back to Lakeside in 2016 in what was the equivalent of the NDL when Paul last rode competitive speedway before being signed by Len in 2021. How on earth he attracted a 5 average astounds me. Some way to go if Paul is to even achieve that assessed figure this season. It honestly made me rather sad seeing Paul alst week struggling, after memories of seeing him in action at Lakeside. I wish the lad a safe season and hope he doesnt suffer any more injuries to the long list he has already.

I was always told this was about safety - methanol has much lower flammability than petrol. But it burns witha clear flame which when it does catch light makes it harder to spot. Methanol also has a high octane number allowing the use for high compression ratio engines as used in speedway. Conversely it is less enegy dense than petrol hence more fuel is needed and the "mpg figures" for a speedway bike are so poor. Indy carts used to use Methanol after a number ofpetrol fires , but now use ethanol fuel. I

Fair play to Redcar for offering the crowd compensation fo the delays. The reasons for delays get ever more inventive. Should they buy a pair of Raybans(other brands are available) for the refs box ?

“Many a true word spoken in jest” Thats what I thought when I read the match preview by Trevor Gear who states “ good to get back to normality” Yup , normal it is , R/R and a gust for both sides. . This week EB have the rub of the green with Scunny opting out of a decent gust for their number 1. Met Office show fair weather for EB so 3 points in the bag tonight.

I thought Greg had retired from the sport....... maybe just one more hurrah ?

Took a chance on the weather for this one - amazing there hadnt been any rain in Sittingbourne. Pretty tame meeting to me .... Howarth was a very good guest and on a mission with some robust first bends, Gilkes was outstanding IMO but otherwise it was pretty much "From the Gate" stuff, which will be familiar to Arlington supporters. First "race" of the nightwas Scott versus Ed in Heat 10. Surprised that the Eastbourne youngsters Brennan and especially Kemp didn't do bettter. Just Lawson and Kennett IMO prevented what might have been a much closer aggregate score. Touch of complacency maybe, or maybe the Eagles having their wings clipped by Leicester has undermined their confidence. Kent will limp on with R/R and a guest and struggle to score 46 points to win a league match IMO ... cannot think Poole will be such a lacklustre lot as the Eagles tonight, with a dead KO Cup rubber to contest. Central Park remains a fine stadium to watch speedway, but they still need to work on the PA system, I could barely hear the announcer, missed several race heat times, which the announcer failed to repeat, and the on track interviews with riders sounded like they wer coing through a drainpipe.