TheReturn

Why? Apart from the Speedway GP adverts on Sky, usually, during the Monday night league meetings, there is rarely anything about speedway in national press on a regular basis. In fact it made me think how far speedway as come, or rather lost its edge as a popular sport when watching an old rerun of George and Mildred on ITV3 recently, where they mention going to the speedway. Would that happen in popular British shows these days? I doubt it.

Oh I am sorry, am I repeating myself, again, and again, and again. I thought that was ok and acceptable, because after all the aforementioned does it every other minute on his commentary too.

Very good coverage, standing in front of track chatting to Scott is much better than being sat up in the box, the atmosphere seemed to come across better, and as others have said, you could really get the presenters 'boyish enthusiasm and excitement' for being there. I thought it worked well with Scott being a recent GP rider being there, who spoke clearly and with insight, just as did Kelvin prior to the racing starting. Sophie I think works, because the riders she interviews know she as the knowledge being married to a rider herself, so it all really worked. I assume it is not in the budget to have the same setup and presentation team at the tracks for every GP, but it would be nice if they did. My only complaint is the commentator, replace Pearson and it would be 100% perfect coverage.

£700? that for a small party? if that was just your cost, I think you have been ripped off somewhere.

My point about Essex/Sussex was about local speedway, not GP. However, using your analogy, Bristol and Bath are close enough to commute to Cardiff, and I was there a couple of weeks ago for a few days and I never saw anything promoting the GP.

Unless the tap was enough to put him off balance, which he then hit one of the many ruts in the track. If Freddie forced Tai off his natural line with that mere tap, then I think Freddie is at fault.

Good technical explanation thank you. eeer... no. You overtake in a safe manner, the same in racing sports, think F1 and a car coming in too fast and tapping the side of another car, not much, just enough to spin the car out. It is all because the overtaking car came in a bit too fast for the corner.

That does sounds good promotion, but I assume it was limited to South Wales? Not sure the same promotion went on elsewhere outside of South Wales? An example of where I feel there is a lack of local efforts, where I am, I within a hours drive of two speedway tracks, Arena Essex and Eastbourne, and yet I have never seen any local promotion of either track.

Some ok racing, I have seen far worse GPs. How much that was down to the bad track or not I don't know, but Harris third race was great stuff, so I thought the racing was ok, despite the bad track.

Not really, I guess you should read before misquoting me hey? I actually agree, the track was not good tonight, but the point I am making is people need to expect such problems now and again on these temp tracks. If the temp tracks can not provide good, and safe racing then decisions needs to be made, Cardiff or Coventry in future years (or personally I would go for Kings Lynn, always superb racing).

I never said it is not dangerous. What I am saying is people have a choice, glamorous stadiums with temp tracks like Cardiff, and risk dodgy tracks like tonight, or we go for regular speedway tracks where we are more likely to get better tracks (unless it is Poole of course).

First of all, if it was truly dangerous, the riders would have refused to ride on it I am sure of that. But we have to be realistic, at this temp speedway stadia we are never going to get 100% perfect tracks. But whilst the crowds flog to Cardiff and buy their tickets, they will keep hosting them there.

It is easy to blame the track a disgrace, but sadly when you have these non-speedway venues, we are always going to get the odd year where the track is like this.

Using social media is so easy these days and need not cost little money for promoters, especially if they get supporters to help them. Get some great video clips of speedway 'racing' on You Tube, use Facebook and Twitter promoting local clubs, even try and get fans at Cardiff tomorrow and those at home trying to get #Speedway trending on Twitter. There is so much that could, and she be done, with just a little effort, you could be reaching people. Might work, might not, but it is the lack of any real consolidated effort by the BSPA that I find annoying. Increased promotion of speedway is good for all promotions, so I don't get the lack of 'promotion' by the majority.

Debated in many places already I am sure, but just who should take responsibility for the lack of promotion about speedway in this country? With Tai being the first British hopeful actually in with a chance of winning Cardiff for many years, why are we not seeing more of this being promoted? I just checked a couple of local Cardiff?Wales online newspapers, and nothing. Whilst IMG are in charge of the GPs, surely this is a great opportunity for the BSPA to piggyback off the GP promotion to highlight league speedway across the country? I know getting newspapers to actually pick up speedway is bit of a hard job, but surely more can be done to highlight the pinnacle of the speedway year in our country?

Depends who were employed... I always seem to get the impression jobs in speedway are given to 'mates', rather than spend a little company's that could make a real difference, experts in marketing.

But his pub games get better ratings than speedway, that is the point.

Did you prefer it before when Leicester did not have any speedway at all?

Once again belittling the opinions, concerns and thoughts of the fans. Some things never change. If you don't like it, you belittle.

Fans feedback is irrelevant, it's 'jobs for the boys' in the speedway world, fans are the last people considered, hence why most of us vent on here.

I guess the problem with just a fine is that if it was done to help the team, the team will often pick up the cost I suspect. A lot of people are blaming the rider, I am less inclined to blame the rider, but the rules which allows the team to get away with it.

Biggest problem is the referees need the power to award in such blatant 'stay downs', even if it is the first lap.

Can you imagine if Tai takes the crown, and how much Pearson will be screaming like the demented fool louder than most other days? That's if he actually realises of course, he missed the moment Hancock had enough points to be Champion a couple of seasons back if memory serves. And some claim he is a brilliant commentator.. I beg to differ. Good idea to have Mr and Mrs Nichols on hand for Cardiff, will be interesting to see how they do.

Thank you, missed that when skimming the TV Guide. I will look forward to the final race, if nothing else

I missed the GP (mainly because i forgot), does anyone know if it will be repeated or in the Eurosport on demand? I cant see anythign listed. If Tai does go on to win more, I suspect Sky will be kicking themselves at letting the GPs go from a British point of view.