Jonny the spud

Would you like custard with that ?

Most people will

Read my post about racers not being able to see. If the meeting had gone ahead and a rider had ended up in a wheelchair ( or worse) who's fault would it have been then ? Until you've been in that position you can't really comment. It all looks so easy from the other side of the fence.

I can only add one comment from a riders point of view as I actually raced sidecars all over europe in the 90's,Tracks may look rideable, and if you're in first place without spray / mud / shale / sand etc ... to a certain extent they are, however Imagine going into a corner at full speed, you bang it sideways , you can hear a bike in front of you, you can hear a bike next to you, in fact all you can do is hear other bikes but because of the crap flying off the bike in front clogging your goggles, you cant see any of them, you also can't see the inside of the track, the outside of the track or indeed anything at all. Phil morris had that at La Reole longtrack in the 90's. He said to me, "i didn't know exactly where i was, i thought i'd turned enough in the corner, maybe even a bit too much, so i gassed it"........ that was about half a second before he slammed into the outside fence breaking quite a few bones. Still think riders bottle it ?

I was told that too, if the ref says no, then it's no.

will do, ( although we're 1,200kms apart ) !

yup, won one heat , one last bend crash whilst fighting for the lead, and two offs on a track that the home side refused to do their P&P day on as they deemed it too dangerous. The meeting should never have gone ahead.

Two meetings into the season with no pre season training and the knives are already out. Nothing like getting behind your team eh ? I saw jari on Tuesday. He was in quite a bit of pain but keen to prove himself. I wonder why he bothers with that kind of support.

I've also put this on today's match thread. Is there and indoor/under cover area at the stadium as I'm thinking of taking an elderly aunt to the meeting today and its a bit cold for her to spend a few hours outside ?

Thinking of taking my 86 year old aunt to her first meeting in nearly 50urs today. Is there an indoor area at rye house stadium for her to watch as its a bit cold to be standing outside ?

It's all irrelevant as Ward has just tweeted that he's got his passport and visa

Let's face it, Ward is well known for being as thick as a plank and Middlo cocked up. It doesn't matter how much money Sky tv or Matt Ford put into the sport, none of it seems to filter through to PR. Unfortunately Ward is a big fish in an ever diminishing pond and wouldn't really be missed if he couldn't race in th UK next year, it wouldn't have that much effect in general terms to the sport. Let's just all move on and worry over the next minor drama. It just paints a whole picture of mishandled amateur dicking around, we can all shout in faux indignation but in the grand scheme of things it won't change diddly squat. Neil's time to publicly refute the accusations has passed and Darcy's too damn stupid to realise the rubbish he's caused . Same old, same old . .

makes you wonder how long drugs stay in the bloodstream and what kind of drugs testing (if any) takes place. I mean did he ride last year under the influence ?

Doesn't Darcy live with Middlo?? Judging by his comments maybe that's where Darcy gets his standards from ?

Trees, totally agree. EVERYTHING should be secondary to racing, but unfortunately racing alone isn't proving enough to attract new fans. You have to make an event of it. The music and commentary here in Europe certainly does that. As I said earlier,even at a wedding a good DJ can make or break the evening. After over two decades of being away from British speedway I honestly couldn't believe I was still hearing mud, Gary glitter etc !

That's the thing though, I love led Zeppelin, Black sabbath etc but realise that if i played that to my customers i'd have 3 men and a dog in my pubs. To appeal to the masses it's not just a case of opening the doors and expecting the public to come in. You have to give them reasons to, and that's where i feel promotors are letting the public down

In my business I've found that a promotion ( whether its live music, DJ's, offers etc) wont make a bad night good, but it does make a good night better. It may take some tweaking to get right but surely it's not beyond the realms if possibility to fade in / fade out good music with the announcements ?

If you attend a wedding / function a good DJ. Will be able to read the crowd/ create an atmosphere etc ,,, I have DJ's as well as live bands playing in my pubs from weekly and they really do make a difference. Has any club ever experimented with a DJ working in conjunction with the announcer to get the crowd going ?? Over here on the continent it's just accepted as part of the razzmatazz. I was really disappointed / surprised last year to still be hearing Gary Glitter / Dave Clark five / mud / sweet etc after an absence of over 20 years isn't various uk tracks . Thoughts please ?

You sure it's not his brother Colin ?? ( nice chap, met him a few times and he knows all about bikes )

After a career ending neck injury Phillipe Bergé moved back to France and Haida a hairdressing salon on the coast at lacanau. Then he moved on to the island of Mauritius where he opened a restaurant After two years there he came back to France and now has a pizza restaurant in the suburbs of Bordeaux. His son Dimitri is a world youth champion in both 125 & 250cc on Grasstrack. He beat my son Adam for the title in the 250cc French championships last year. He is 16 years old like Adam, weighs about 55lg and is bloody good on a speedway bike. We're hoping to get him some second halves this year

Maybe they buy them because they like the way they look. By using your analogy everyone should drive a ford fiesta because they do 70mph just as we'll as a Ferrari It can just be to personal taste. Not everything is there to go faster

I used to be a 500 sidecar passenger and heat from the exhausts was s big problem as they ran next to your left leg. I got burned several times on the 1000m track at herxheim. We tested a carbon end can from a Ducati super bike once. No discernible loss in power but you could still touch it after 4 laps ... As they are already homologated by the FIM Maybe worth testing ??

Maybe if a road silencer in carbon could be used there will be no need for a heat shield. If a race can from a super bike is homologated for road racing. Can it be used in speedway ?

The league itself, a team or just a rider ?

Unless you live next door