Steve Shovlar

As it was said by Allen and King, rain equals away team advantage. Harris said rain equals no home advantage and Klindt said when it rain the away team always have an advantage. My guess is the usual setups are gone and home riders never feel as secure as normal.

Forecast starting to look a bit iffy now for tomorrow night. The bbc show rain hitting the area around 7-8pm. Not going all that way for a call off. Will look again in the morning.

So did Ipswich choke last night? Or did they choke?

A shame. I would have hunted you out.

So Pirates take a ten point lead to Ipswich for the second leg. But for the rain I believe it would have been game over already but Ipswich have a very good chance of making the final. All to play for. I think I might make the long, long hike up for this. Weather looks OK. Thoughts?

Trying to change the setup of the track catches out the home riders setup. Tonight was a prime example when the track was different (rain caused) the home team suffered. Ipswich will set it up like every week so their riders know their setups, or they will be chasing for it during the meeting. I think Saturday is balanced on a knife edge. 50-50 either team could go through.

The track tonight was never slick. Track times were 4 seconds off the norm and the fastest time was just under 63 seconds, which would have been the slowest race of the season before tonight. Nice smooth track tonight as well. No bumps.

He was fine in the press conference where he got Rotn.

Just got back. I don’t think I have ever in my 46 years of watching speedway ever seen a meeting of two halves like that. It was quite frankly ridiculous. I got to the stadium at 6.30 and they were watering the track. Then at 7 pm there was a short sharp shower which lasted about 5 minutes. Enough to wet the ground. The track still looked in very good condition though. However, as the riders came to tapes in heat one we got another shower which lasted 2-3 mins. The track looked a little greasy. What the rain had done, together with the heavy rain we have had over the last two days, had made it greasy and tricky. The outside line by the fence came into play and the Ipswich riders were gating and getting straight out wide and then were impossible to catch. We were being mullered. To such an extent that by heat 8, and 12 points down, all hope had vanished into the ether and everyone around me, myself included, chilled and accepted that this season was not going to be our season. It really was men against boys. Led by Chris Harris who was revelling in the racing conditions. There was no holding him out, and with Lawson proved a potent force. Then something happened. Klindt and Josh G gated over King and held him off to reduce the gap to 8. But the next heat proved false hope as Harris won a good battle with Covatti and Brady was last. Ten down and looking at the Ipswich team it was hard to see where we would get a heat advantage from, when you consider how well the Witches riders were doing. Heat 11 and a shock 5-1. Holder who had been poor in his first two rides popped out with a battling THJ, in front of Iversen. We were wondering how long it would take Iversen to split our boys but as the laps went on he wasn’t closing. A remarkable and unexpected 5-1 to reduce the deficit to 6. THJ was then brought out in place of Wells in the next and what a cracking race it was. THJ gated with Klindt but Harris got between them and then started to chase down and pass THJ. They battled side by side for a lap before Harris charged under THJ entering lap four but THJ wasn’t moving and Harris touched THJ calling a slide off. The fact that Harris also fell gave the game away and an awarded 5-1 meant there was only two in it. Heat 13 and it was game on. Poole gated and a challenge from Iversen petered out and beyond our wildest dreams we were two up. Thoughts were that we could possibly draw or win the meeting. Heat 14 and the wheels had come off the Ipswich bus as THJ and Josh G gated and won at a canter. In heat 15 I must admit I was surprised at the Poole picks but it turned into another great race with Harris climbing all over the Pirates for three laps before charging under both entering the 4th lap. The Poole boys then going either side of Harris to stun the crowd and open up a ten point lead to take to the second leg. It’s far from over. Middlo said afterwards at the press conference he would have been happy with 8 before the meeting and very happy with ten. Ipswich will come back hard at us after this. The team to go through is far from decided. I will say if we hadn’t had that rain Poole wouldn’t have been so poor in the first half. THJ was named rider of the night. He said he was much happier with his performance. So were we. I have never seen a team collapse like that. From being utterly dominant to losing 6 of the last 7 heats by 5-1 or 32-10 is frankly ridiculous. And people say Middlo is not a good manager! He doesn’t know what losing is about, unlike myself who had given up the ghost. Sorry for the length of this post.

Lazarus.

Reckon it will take another 5-10 mins to fix the fence.

Harris has been sublime. Did it for us in this meeting last year and against us tonight. That was one great race until the crash.

Raining again. Lol! swindon and Wolves must be rubbing their hands together knowing the winner will have Ipswich. Should make next week a battle!

Way it goes sometimes. Outgated and once Riding wide its game over. That rain killed it for us. Same for both teams though.

Men against boys. Race times 3 seconds slower than usual.

Got to say that shower has changed the track and Ipswich mullering us and going straight to the fence. Then there’s no chance of catching them. They fully deserve it.

No Iversen slowed and covatti couldn’t do anything. Poor from ref.

Wtf? Iversen caused that! He miscounted and caused Covatti to lay it down.

They were watering the track with the dirty rain cloud approaching. Track looks ok. Tiny crowd. Less than last week. All watching it at home.

Just had a sharp heavy shower at the track. Cleared now.

Yes a nice mostly dry day, if breezy forecast.

Reading through this thread I feel I went to a different GP to most on here. I thought the GP was OK. Not a classic by any means but certainly I found it entertaining and never once did I think the meeting was a complete duffer. There have been far worse GPS this year. No, it wasn’t as good as some previous Cardiff GPs but certainly there was plenty of passing. I also thought the crowd was larger this year, which is a good sign. Definitely swollen by the amount of Poles now making the trip. 5 years ago there were just a few up high on the third bend. Now there are thousands all around the stadium. Certainly adds to the already excellent atmosphere. I always buy tickets on the day but this year all the cheap tickets had sold out with cheapest on the day £50. Had to use a tout to get a cheap ticket. The city was absolutely heaving before the meeting and great fun. As for a second GP at Belle Vue, there is no chance whatsoever. Until Cardiff sells out anyway, which is not likely to happen. Why on earth would BSI run another British GP which would reduce the attendance of Cardiff? Never going to happen. NSS not big enough anyways and even if they did it with temp stands, who is to say they might get the track completely wrong just like they did in the SON semi final Friday meeting a couple of years ago? I for one thoroughly enjoyed Cardiff this year. Sure we have seen better meetings there but I came away knowing I will be back in 2020.

Looks like a 49-41 type score line. Depends if the Wolves reserves can keep up their high scoring form and Masters shows he hasn’t been affected by sleepless nights.

Thursday a dry day with sunny periods after an odd morning shower. No problems.

He seems to think if he says it enough times we will believe him. Instead we just laugh at his continuous guff.