moomin man 76

The probable end of speedway at Derwent Park - I was informed that the work was starting at 1pm, with the speedway track being ripped up, to make way for the wider pitch required by Workington Reds to meet FA regulations. No winners in this sorry tale; especially as there is no certainty politically in Allerdale at present. Unlike the rest of the country, where the Tories took a kicking at the council elections, in Allerdale it appears we are left in a state of gridlock, with the council likely to be led by a Tory/Independent coalition. The new leader of the Tories is ex-UKIP, who spent most of his time pre-election decrying the cost of the new stadium. Personally, I think we have seen the end of speedway at Derwent Park, regardless of whether the new Allerdale stadium is built or not.

I can see the merits, in introducing 'qualifying' on Friday, as it adds an extra element to the GP weekend with the benefit of extra television coverage. However, the concept becomes flawed, when riders are unavailable due to Polish League commitments. If the FIM/CCP were that committed to the concept of 'qualifying,' they should have made attendance mandatory with no conflicting league fixtures arranged on that evening. The riders will always opt to ride for their league clubs, due to the terms of their contracts and the relative earnings that can be made at league and GP level.

I think there is an element of truth in what you are saying...for instance, if Speedway of Nations had existed two years ago, Finland could have chosen from Nike Lunna, Jesse Mustonen and Jooa Partanen as an Under 21 rider. Hopefully Timi Salonen develops, but he isn't at their level yet...

However, as it is at the moment, the rule is tokenistic with each Under 21 rider having to only take one ride. I feel that they either have to remove the rule completely, or alternatively make the Under 21 rider take as many rides as the other riders in the team. Of course, if they were to choose the latter, it would make the gap between the 'haves' and 'have not's' even greater. At least by reverting to the old World Pairs format, it would give the smaller nations a better chance of springing an upset and reaching the final, as it would make their pool of talent a little larger. The state of speedway in most countries, at present, is such that it is difficult for most nations concerned to invest and try to develop young talent. in an ideal world that wouldn't be the case. However, outside of Poland, there isn't the money available to do so. Moreover, in most countries you are relying on a network of volunteers, such as club officials in Scandinavia, to keep tracks open, encourage new riders into the sport and try to develop them.

The mandatory Under 21 rule doesn't do the smaller speedway nations any favours, as they are far less likely to have a competitive rider to select. It makes the gulf between the 'haves' and 'have not's' that much wider. It also doesn't do the riders any favours; for instance, think of the time and expense of Finland sending Timi Salonen to the event, for him to have a mechanical failure at the start of Heat One. The French Under 21 rider also looked little better than National League standard. in my opinion, it would be better for each competing country to nominate any three riders of their choice with one rider acting as a reserve. This would formally turn the event back into the World Pairs, which the Speedway of Nations is masquerading as anyway.

They changed the rules for this season, so that the lower ranking team in the KO races has to take a heat advantage (4-2, 5-1) to advance. Your comments don't surprise me though, as few others in the area I was sitting in were aware either. There certainly hasn't been much publicity either of the rule change.

All in all, I thought it was a decent meeting, with enough good racing at times to keep it entertaining. In one regard, it would have been easy to predict in advance who was going to qualify, but for a time I thought the Danes were in trouble with the Latvians and French in the mix. Lebedev was fantastic value for the Latvians, while the French had a solid pair of riders; Berge was extremely unfortunate in Heat Three against GB. The Americans came to the party late in the meeting aided by the points gifted to them by the Madsen/Iversen incident. I wasn't overly impressed with the refereeing. Heat Two was farcical, while I couldn't understand why Iversen wasn't thrown out of the race against Finland, when he appeared to clearly touch the tapes. To give all four riders a warning was odd, as Aarnio didn't appear to move, while Mustonen and Jacobsen only appeared to move after Iversen moved first.

Jesse Mustonen replaces Timo Lahti for Finland. As far as I am aware, it will be Jesse Mustonen's first speedway meeting in Britain.

Nice to know - off to support Tero at Glasgow now!

There is a great deal about this whole sorry situation that doesn't quite add up. I wouldn't claim to have the inside track on what was said/discussed by whom, but I do know that the promotion openly stated that they would be refunding those who purchased season tickets. Has anyone actually received a refund? I know I have not and I have got to the point, where I am seriously considering taking legal advice...

I personally wouldn't actually mind going to the odd meeting at Brough Park, but that isn't currently going to happen, when the money I allocated for watching speedway this year is sitting somewhere in Workington Comets' bank account/has been used by the promotion to pay off debts. Today's latest was that I might be receiving a refund in a 'couple of weeks'...the same line that has been given to my wife the last two times she has made enquiries too...

If the figures quoted in the News & Star article are true, it is evidently clear that without Laura Morgan, Workington speedway would have folded years ago. Like others, I am grateful for the fact that she kept Workington going for so long. The only sour taste in my mouth is the fact that having invested in a season ticket for the 2019 season at Workington, I am still waiting for the promised refund. On two separate occasions, my wife has made contact with the promotion to be assured that 'we will post out the refund next week,' for no refund to be forthcoming. Refund or no refund, I am now faced with the prospect of a two hour drive to see any speedway; in reality, I am all but certainly going to be a fan lost to the sport, or someone who will watch the sport from the periphery.

Joonas Kylmakorpi - one admitedly rather than ten!

Yes - Stuart Robson deserved the well earned round of applause after his final race. I'm glad I managed to shake his hand after the meeting and had the opportunity to thank him for the entertainment he has provided throughout his career.

After braving the showers on the motorbike for this one, I have to be honest and say that it was one of the dullest meetings I can remember in a long time. Not the fault of the Comets riders, who went about their jobs as professionally as they could in the circumstances. For the Diamonds, Tero looked like the only rider who was ever likely to consistently beat any of the Comets riders, while Ashley Morris started well but tailed off towards the end. At least Stuart Robson managed a pass round the outside of Kyle Bickley in his last profesional ride. A pity the missing Diamonds riders seemingly gave no thought to it being Stuart Robson's last professional meeting and the promotion gave little regard to the paying public with the assembled lineup.

Robert Plant grew up in Stourbridge...there's more than a passing possibility that he went to meetings at Dudley Wood in his earlier pre- Led Zeppelin days. I do remember reading an interview with him a few years ago, where he allegedly claimed that if he had known that Dudley Wood was under threat from housing development he would have bought the place. A few years back, there was quite a range of Wolverhampton Wanderers players used to appear at Monmore Green, usually as guests of the promotion, but the only one who could be labelled as a fan was Alex Rae. It has probably been covered elsewhere, but I have definitely seen Paul Scholes and Johnny Marr at Kirky Lane watching Belle Vue. As a footnote, Robert Plant was (possibly still is) a regular at Molineux watching Wolverhampton Wanderers and did attend games at Kidderminster Harriers - a genuinely nice guy.

The size of the rugby pitch has been sufficient for both Workington Town's matches, as well as international games - most recently Scotland v New Zealand. However, it is not nearly a full sized pitch. Even a casual glance shows that the distance between the 40m and 30m lines on both sides of the pitch are not even close to being 10m apart.

Hopefully the track has not already absorbed too much water, as the weather up here in Cumbria at the moment is awful and there will be plenty of extra rain overnight...At least the forecast for Friday is better as the day goes on.

Another Friday night meeting arranged at short notice...no good for me when I don't finish work until 7pm. I just wish that things could be kept simple and meetings arranged on official race nights. I still can't comprehend how we have got to the middle of September and teams are scrambling around to fulfil fixtures that should have been raced months ago.

I can't comment on the events at Brough Park last night, but having been at Derwent Park on Saturday night, there were at best two Diamonds' riders putting in an effort. The rest were seemingly disinterested and going through the motions. To have one rider score nearly half the team total on Saturday night says a lot...

As with other posters, I would concur that the meeting was entertaining with good racing on a well prepared courtesy of Steve Lawson. Comets just about edged it, with Edinburgh's two Swedes and Will Lawson contributing almost nothing - at least Lawson was making some starts. Ben Barker really is an enigma - the first out of the pits with a bike to help Nikolai Klindt in Heat One and someone who was clearly wanting to contribute all he could to help the Comets team; in complete contrast to Thursday night and him doing his level best to finish off Tero Aarnio's season at Redcar.

The same Tero Aarnio who ended up the qualifying heats one point behind Craig Cook and was only eliminated from the semi-finals on count back? No bad for a guy whose season appeared to be over on Thursday night courtesy of Ben Barker...

I'm not sure who the Finnish team will be fielding at Nagyhalasz, as Jesse Mustonen was hospitalised after his crash at Bielefeld in the World Longtrack Challenge. Sportowefakty still has him listed to ride though - news must travel slowly to them!

The competition has a future, but there clearly need to be tweaks made to the format. The qualifiers allow more nations to compete, but they need to be held in venues that do not resemble gate and go tracks in a field (Teterow), or on a midweek evening with inevitable travel complications (Belle Vue). Under 21 riders have to be mandatory, or not at all, rather than optional. If they are to be mandatory, the format has to be altered so that Under 21 riders have to compete. There is no point in having an optional Under 21 rider, when most nominated Under 21 riders will only ride in the event of injury to a senior rider. As it is the format leaves almost all Under 21 riders seriously out of pocket, as no travel expenses are paid and the prize money on offer is poor. If there is a necessity to stage a two event final to meet television obligations, at least stage the event on the same day. Run one event in the morning/early afternoon, re-grade the track and run the second event in the evening. Sell separate or dual admission tickets. The biggest tweak needs to be made to the end of the competition. To run forty two heats to eliminate four teams is excessive. Points won in the qualification phase should also be rewarded in the elimination race, as well as the final. A pair who achieved less points in the qualification phase should not be allowed to win the elimination race, or the final simply by finishing in second and third place. To an outsider (and most speedway fans), it is ridiculous that a lower scoring team over the course of the first forty two heats can win the competition by finishing in second and third place in the final. At least make the lower scoring team who qualify for the final win a heat advantage to emerge victorious. Unfortunately, most of these flaws were pointed out by speedway fans a long time before race off 1 was held. The attendances for each event was poor, as the public voted with their feet. Either the creators of the competition, Armando Castagna and Torben Olsen are not interested in the opinions of fans, or they are simply deluded in what they think speedway fans will put up with. If either of them had any dignity they should resign for creating such an ill-conceived competition.

Definitely true, which begs the question as to why the organisers decided to stage the event on a Tuesday evening... There would have been plenty of fans myself included, who could have attended, but couldn't attend for a whole host of reasons. For instance, it would have been relatively easy for me to get sponsors passes to enter the pits area prior to the meeting, but it is nigh on impossible to finish work at 4.30pm in rural Cumbria and get to central Manchester for a 7pm start let alone any earlier. More worryingly, I think the appeal of the competition is such that even if the meeting had been staged on a Saturday evening, there would have been very little likelihood of there being a full house.