pointsmeanplayoffs

Interesting fact, Stars gain a heat advantage in 47% of races featuring Robert and/or Niels so far this season. Love a stat I do!

Odd that Wolves have booked a guest and not let Freddie and PK take an extra ride? Stars should win this in the sunshine, 50-40.

Big crowd there too on Good Friday when they battered my Stars. Plenty of life left in Lakeside as an EL team with that fanbase.

Will be interesting to see if Rob keeps Lewis Kerr at 7 for this home meeting. Having him ride with Porsing seemed to work on BH Monday but it does mean the indomitable pairing of Kerr and Lambert.

Firstly, I would like thank the Leicester Lions promotion/management for rushing the meeting through in drizzle despite the fact they were getting battered by a rampant Stars team. Not all teams would act in such an honourable manner. Bravo. Secondly, my god the Stars needed that away performance. Top performances all around. The 3 riders all 'under pressure' all stepped up. Porsing's move up inside Doyle down the backstraight forcing him into an error on a tactical was crucial IMO. Morris was trapping like a maniac all night and although sometime looked a bit awkward he performed well. And Kenneth, much maligned Kenneth, well he was a world better than recently, maybe his performances over the weekend had perked him up a bit? Race of the night was Max Fricke and Niels. Don't push a GP rider out wide to the fence and not expect them to come right back at you! Good tough racing.

Fair enough, good planning on their behalf. More important for them to have a full team than have more away fans I guess. Will Auty be able to pass Kerr when he's outgated? We'll find out on Monday.......

Is Lions rider availability the reason this meeting doesn't start until 7.30pm? Would have thought that more away fans would travel had the start been 5.30pm that's all. I'll be there anyhow as it's my closest EL track. Stars need to take something from this meeting, cannot keep taking 3pt wins at home and big fat zeros away. Any idea on how Ashley Morris does around Beaumont Park? He gates quite well so should be alright : ) As for Kenneth, his first few rides in the ELRC were dynamite, the rest...not so much. Let's hope he get's back on form.

No Storm lads available to ride for Bees? Connor Mountain scored 10 for Mildenhall earlier on in the season at Lynn versus the Young Stars. On current form he'll give Morris a run for his money. Besides, despite getting to the grand final, Bees managed to keep hold of their first choice draft pairing from the get go, so let's not whinge about the draft too much eh? Looking forward to a tight meeting against 2 teams who I expect to be in the playoffs come September (along with Poole and Belle Vue).

The rain is heading in from the west according to the met office, and it's juts started in Pbo. Hopefully this means it will pass Lynn in plenty of time for Buster to prep another cracker of a track. It will be on.

Can Stars ask Stokes not to take a guest booking? Not saying they should, but can they?

I agree it wasn't just gate and go, the Aces riders seemed to adapt to the different track conditions much faster than the Stars. The Aces were my tip at the start of the season actually, think I said so on the BV page when they announced their top 5. My only concern was believe or not was Scott Nicholls struggling as 2nd ht leader but he has been consistently very good so far. Yes, losing Steady is a huge blow but strong guest bookings like North last night should mean BV can cover Steady. Not many teams will beat BV at home once the season is up and running properly. Good times to be an Aces fan and after the last few seasons who can begrudge them? Not me for one.

Stars didn't lose a heat after heat 8, let's not get too hysterical about a bad start to a meeting shall we? Well done Belle Vue, great display of gating to start the meeting. No coming back from that.

Aces so far have fallen well short of my expectations so far, therefore I fully expect them to up their game tonight though seeing as they're against my Stars : ( Do well to take a point away from home. Hopefully the rain stays away and I can win lots of cash gambling on heat winners from gate 4 : )

This time last year Stars were a million points clear already (OK a slight exaggeration but you get my point!) and look what happened. It's still early. We've had 2 away meeting at places we have not done well at for quite a while and have had two heavy losses. BUT we have had 3 50pts plus wins at home, we have a rider in Robert Lambert who has come on loads since last season, Lewis Kerr is as good as any reserve, a Number 1 who I wouldn't swap for anyone and even Rory is winning races. Yes Bjerre is a worry, as is Ash and Nicklas will improve with track time. Let's not push the panic button just yet eh?!? Can't see any changes until/if we start losing points at home..... Well done Swindon last night, a solid home performance and Nick Morris should be applauded for a stellar couple of evenings work.

I'd be delighted for an away point tonight. Shame Swindon have so many injuries, always an entertaining match with 2 full teams. The fact that Newman has a lower draft ranking than Charles Wright shows what kind of Poole manipulated joke the whole rider seeding was. Before anyone goes on about "Yeah it was based on his PL average" well anyone can find a criteria which suits them. Fact is, Newman won Poole the EL last year and his seeding should have reflected the advantage he was for Poole. Anyway, back on topic, I predict a strong Robins showing, winning by 10.

I was unable to make it last night, sounds like I missed a decent meeting though from the updates I was getting. Very happy that Lewis Kerr had a good night, and a pretty solid showing from the rest exc. Ash. I know he blew an engine after the last Stars home meeting, did he seem that slow or was he always in contention? I see he set a Plymouth track record the other night though?!? Apparently the track was safe and there were working tapes?!? Sounds a lot better than the last meeting I was at : ) Onto Swindon, then onto the World Championship we roll!!!

As one of the 50,000 or so paying punters in Warsaw the other night, I can honestly say I am glad if there was some kind of 'riders revolution' and that they refused to ride on that track Why should they go flat out into the corners not knowing what's gonna happen? They are not performing seals, they are professional sportsman who are aware and accept a certain level of risk inherent in Speedway. They cannot be expected to just put EVERYTHING at risk. This sport is dangerous enough. The track was dangerous, but the starting tapes were embarrassing. On the biggest stage of all, the very foundations of what's needed for a speedway meeting were not in place which is completely unacceptable. Who is ultimately responsible for this? Ole Olsen and his gang? What they created was not 'fit for purpose'. It was just completely unacceptable. Why was there no back up start tapes?!? FFS come on you have 50,000 people coming, a pretty big TV audience and you don't think of this?!? There was about 5 different replacement set of tapes laid out ready on the centre green just in case of riders breaking the tapes but no back up posts/magnets? Yes I'm angry, but my over-riding feeling is dejection. This Warsaw GP should have been an opportunity to showcase our sport, but instead all it did was highlight problems symptomatic of 'a mickey mouse sport' which is heart breaking as I love speedway and stand up for it all the time against constant mockery from fans of other sports. I'm not sure I can defend my sport anymore after such events : (

Pretty excited about Warsaw now, cannot believe how cheap the weekend is going to be compared to Cardiff.

Big crowd too, biggest for some time. Does Lynn publish attendance figures? Must have been at least a 2000 there, biggest I've seen at Speedway for a while.

Regarding the programme, it is much better than the fold up effort of 2014. Credit where it's due for listening to feedback. The scorecard also changed slightly this week with the lines made darker so it's easier to fill in. Also like Rory's weekly column and the update on how the riders are doing elsewhere which will be awesome once the Polish and Scandi seasons kick in. Wouldn't mind seeing a few more stats in there as the season progresses, perhaps some of those fancy infographics you see nowadays. Then again, I love stats perhaps some others don't care so much. Did you know for example that up until last night, 50% of the heats ridden by Lewis Kerr this season for Lynn has ended in a shared heat?!?!

Just wondering whether anyone knows when the first '20 match based' rolling averages are going to be issued out, and what the cut off points for including meetings are?

Well that was more straightforward than I thought it was going to be! Big difference was the return to form of Kenneth Bjerre, apparently he has reverted back to his old engines after the new ones for this season haven't been working out that well (putting it mildly!). Say what you like about Bjerre but I think we can rely on him to WIN races when we're at home against fellow heat leaders which takes the pressure of Niels and Rory. Speaking of Rory, I thought he was rider of the night for Stars, superb. He looks a different rider this year. One point of concern was our reserves being outscored, at home, again. Nice to see Porsing back on form too after a disrupted start to the season.

I think that Kerr and Morris could be the key tonight as the main bodies look pretty even. Morris has impressed me and should outscore Nielsen who looked uncomfortable on a big fast track at Pbo the other night. Kerr will match Worrall. It's gonna be a tight one.

I spotted the bump into turn 1 also, that looked pretty hairy with riders bouncing into the turn at full whack trying to turn bike.

Weather looks good, Buster should have plenty of time to perfect the track : ) How solid is that Belle Vue side?!? No weak links in that top 5. Hopefully Kenneth will sort his form out otherwise I fear that we may lose here. Cannot keep relying on Niels to win the big heats and I recall Zagar was decent last year when he tried. A home win, by 1 point, would do me.