Roger Jacobs

It becomes tedious as soon as one person starts to bully another over semantics. It's quite clear what the orginal poster was trying to say about the Wells situation, but another has taken it upon themselves to question every nuance in a typically repetitive and pointless BSF fashion. All teams have got a budget, and they will try to persuade the riders they want usign the budget they've got, in the hope that the usual market rules of supply and demand will come into play. Wells may still decide to give it a go - it all depends on the standards he sets himself. If he can get away without a retune or three and/or he finds a new sponsor or two, he might decide to sign on the dotted line. The same applies to any riders currently looking for a team place, and those promoters looking to fill the remaining few spots.

Somerset signing Nielsen is the clincher for me - all-round strength which makes the Rabbles the pre-season favourites.

It's on world speedway.com (don't think that site is anything to do with the BSPA!). http://www.worldspeedway.com/artman/publish/article_22020.shtml

Poor chap! The other consortium members ought to watch out, because they're now going to be pawns of another secretive organisation which puts on a jolly "everybody is equal" front, but happily shafts proposective members with their own interprepations of a made up rule book.

Robert Branford holds a British passport.

Not sure why you are still bullying this person over semantics. Most people would use the word "riders" as a generalism, not as a specific plural. Anyway, anyway, anyway: Harley Horwood, Damien Koppe, Ryan Douglas, Mickey Dyer, Simon Nielsen - and others (they were off the top of my head). I have long been an advocate that if non-Brits are employed, then their Green Sheet must never drop below their starting assessed average. If they aren't good enough to maintain it, then it shouldn't be possible to re-employ them at a lower value.

The problem is that after blowing up a couple of engines, Schramm only managed to see out the 2012 season with help from Chris Mills. Riders are finding it really tough, especially if they have got family / jobs which make it difficult to justify the expenditure. Richie Hawkins packed it in because he couldn't make the racing pay.