Steve Shovlar

Thanks for that but a real pain as I had freed up next wednesday for the trip. So I take it they wont now be racing on Good Friday?

Now Kyle is without a PL club he will be short of rides. Pretty sure he will be picked up pretty quickly though. Won't affect his Poole appearances though. Commisserations to Plymouth fans.

Is the Poole meeting definately off? I know its been removed from Sky but is it cancelled completely?

The statement put out by BV could be a legal cover for them. Imagine 50 people going to small claims demanding BV pay for their hotel, fuel etc as they knew of the problem but still allowed people to waste their money fully in the knowledge that these people were wasting their money. Do the BV two actually have any actual financial input in the club? The stadium isnt theirs, so basically they just have the lisence. By bringing the sport into disrepute can the bspa remove the licence and stick a promoter in there who could do a good job.

Ye gads!! Its like Captain Smith of the Titanic standing on the bridge as water laps around his head shouting out, "its not my fault! I was asleep in my bunk when the guy on the wheel hit the iceberg!". Sorry but the buck stops with the promoters. And unlike Captain Smith, they saw the iceberg coming from days off but still decided to steer into it!

Weather due to change with Atlantic low coming through with rain on Thursday afternoon and evening. Hopefully it will be gone well before start time. Best track watering is rain. Mid day meetings are the worst to prepare for. An overcast Good Friday wont be a bad thing.

A long way for me to go on the 30th for a cancelled meeting. Is The Poole meeting on Sky going ahead or have they pulled the plug already?

The box I went for was this one. https://www.entertainmentbox.com/product-category/t8-tv-boxes-flagship-units/ Spend the £110 and get the keyboard. Well with it. Faultless device which is fast and has the capability of sticking a hard drive in it. Mine has been perfect and its the best on the market.

A week ago on here I said that it was utter madness to run the meeting without riders practising on it first, and was told I am just jealous of the new Belle Vue setup. I said that a good practice session was needed because the last thing the sport needs is holes in feet and more nails in coffins. No, was the reply, the riders will not practice and the first time they take to the track is coming around for heat one. I said it was madness, but only a few on here agreed with me. You cannot risk such a shoddy plan when a six thousand crowd are turning up from around the country, have paid for hotels, time off work, fuel in cars, etc etc etc, plus paid money for their tickets. And hey presto, What has happened? The very worst possible scenario. Six thousand do turn up, then sit or stand there freezing and it turns out that the track is exactly as I thought it could be. Unrideable, or unraceable as Harris said over the mic. The BBC, ITV, Sky, radio and newspapers were all there wasting their time. As for the ticket paying public, well its even worse because there was the competely lost opportunity to get a load of new fans to the sport. I take absolutely no joy in writing this. It is a complete disaster. And it could have been completely avoidable. A call of yesteday would have been bad but not ruinous. Yes people would have been angry having booked hotels but they could have understood. But to get everyone in the stadium and then have it called off could not be any worse. Belle Vue in one fell swoop have lost all the goodwill they had generated over the last year. How they are going to recover from this is difficult to tell. At times I really despair for my sport.

Common sense prevails. Hope it rode well.

Be interested to hear how the new track rides compared to last year.

What did you expect Poole to be? First away meeting of the season and without our number one. Three points from Holders rides. Do you think he would have scored that if fit to race? If he had scored 10 Poole would have been out of sight. I keep reading people who are not Poole fans say we will go through the season unbeaten and thats nonsense. We will loose at least once. (Humour) What must worry other clubs is that Kurtz is only going to get better but will end up at reserve more than likely to take up to secen rides if we need him. All good, though not for that nights underperformer. Swindon away next Sunday will give us a tougher test. Hopefully we will be back ti full strength. Thanks for that. The footage is up until 7.30 tonight. For those that have not watched the meeting you can find it on periscope. Follow me for notifications of when I am live on periscope @stephenshovlar

I streamed the meeting live and thanks for the comments and banter along the wayfor those that joined me.heres the first heats. https://www.periscope.tv/w/abs1LzFtTUVQZVdxTm1RR2J8MXluSk9lcUJRUGxLUsYmqjdFRXypzETT3iZJEtF-34qvQzuV9cJlOnPhcKpS The rest should be underneath and if nit you can find it by looking for me @stephenshovlar or zooming in on e map to coventry stadium. The footage will be there for the next 20 hours. Lots of good racing tonight. Harris was flying from the back as was Kk until a suprise heat 15 when against all the oddsPoole went and got a shock 5-1. Track was smooth and slick. All Poole boys chipped in tonight but we only got 3 from Holders rides. Hans continues to knock riders off. First trophy in the cabinet. Loads of improvement in the team. And again when Newman met Garrity there was only one winner. Special mention to Bates who was a rocket from the tapes tonight. Hans dived under him and took him offbut really a rider of his experience should have known better and waited for the moment. Anyway its all on Periscope to watch.

Is it a complete sell out? If so thats fantastic news. Hopefully the bbc will be there to cover it and we can get to see some footage. Or are they so obsessed with football other sports dont get a look in? Weather is dry so all is good. Anyone going to Periscope the event?

A rider in the past once told me it was easier to get injured in the PL as riders tended to be less experienced and if you tried to make a pass you risked being taken out by over ambitious and out of control riders. In the EL riders were of a higher calibre, and also less of a risk on a bike so you could race in the knowledge that there was less of a chance of being injured. Perhaps, and this is only speculation, Kyle doesnt want to risk a big injury in the PL which could harm his team berths at a higher level. Especially in 2016 when he is also riding in Poland every week. Also, if I remember correctly, Nick Morris also had a much better EL average than his PL average.

Ask Matt Ford not us. The Speedway Office is open tomorrow so give him a call. Sure he will tell you his reasons.

So can we expect a big cheer from the Coventry fans tomorrow night when Hans is announced? Clubs fans normally like to warmly applaud their ex riders.

Suprised the conspiracy theorists havent yet jumped on the "hes keeping his pl average down so that he gets a berth for Poole". I do struggle to understand why people think Garrity is better than Newman. Never seen anything to prove that is the case. Newman just seems a more complete rider. Better style, track craft and has had Garrity in his pocket for a while now. Guess we will see tomorrow night when they meet again. Just my opinion of course but I would have Newman in my 1-7 any day over Garrity.

Disagree with you Pinny. The PL average difference means nothing to how they do in the EL. Some riders adapt to top flight racing. Better than others. Garrity just seems wild and out of control, like Bridger was but worse. Guess we will see when they race tomorrow night but regardless of being a Poole fan I would pick Newman over the current Garrity every day of the week. Personal opinion of course.

So here we are with the return leg of the Elite Shield at Brandon Stadium on Friday night. Poole have a slender 22 point lead to defend but Coventry are sure to come out with all guns blazing to claim their first silverware of the 2016 season. KK is due back which should make Coventry far stronger than the team put out at Poole. Personally I think it will be a very close meeting with four points in it either way. Thoughts?

Those who say Newman has no ambition are way off kilter. Whether he has the ability to match his ambition is another question. There is no doubt Newman has ambition. He has managed to get a team berth in Poland with Pila. Which Polish team is Garrity signed up for? So he is riding three leagues in 2016. EL, PL and Polish second Division. Will he be a Team GB rider in the future? Possibly, possibly not. But I did speak to him in the winter and he was not happy with his 2015 form and knew there was more to come, and said he needed to improve his gating. He has the determination but that alone is not enough and IMO will be a very decent second string/ third heat leader. Always seems to be not fast enough. When he wins a heat it is often half a second slower than other heats. Like to be proved wrong though. Garrity. Everytime I have seen him he is all over the place. Locking up and losing 20 metres, often over riding. Comparing him to Newman is chalk and cheese. Newman smooth and looking polished, Garrity very rough in his style. Because of this Newman tends most of the time to have Garrity in his pocket. We will have another opportunity to see if this is true tomorrow night. Both riders have ambition and want to get as far as they can in the sport. Not every ride can get to the top, and personally neither will be GP riders of the future. But both are capable with experience to represent their country in the future.

For those that want to watch some of the racing you can see a few heats here. https://www.periscope.tv/w/abh9wDFtTUVQZVdxTm1RR2J8MVlwSmthdmxha2RLaixA5LG5K1I68g2nqEd9lddh-odR6Eu2mriyiXdoKOq0 Thought it eas a decent meeting tonight.msome good racing for the first meeting of the season and Poole really do look a powerhouse. For Coventry Harris was very good. Battled hard for his points. King had a win but was mostly awol. Garrity was a reserve in a top five spot. Outclassed all night to be honest. Woryna battled hard and was knicked off by Hans trying to get past. An entertainer doing wheelies and waving to the crowd. Think he did a lap of honor after every race. The reserves were dreadful. For Poole Holder was solid. Kurtz got better as the night went on. Watty sucked. He said it and it was true. Buckowski looked fast and wild. Hans was very good. Ellis would have scored more but for an ef. Newman scored a max and was man of the meeting. Lookng forward to the return which will be a much closer affair.

Got a decent rider in Woryna. Just battled past Ellis and was right up Kutz exhast for four laps. Looks good on a bike and fast. Having never ridden here before the lad has impressed so far. Garrity is rubbish and off the pace. All over the place.

Why are CovEntry fans writing off Woryna before a wheel has turned. He is viewed as a fine prospect in Poland and is certainly better than Jamrog. Give the lad a chance before trying to get rid before a wheel has turned. He will take time to settle but is a decent one for the future in my opinion. For those not making the trip I will stream some footage tonight on periscope. You can download the periscope app and i can be found @stephenshovlar Or zoom on the map to poole stadium. Not filming much racing but might do a little. The footage will be available for 24 hours.

Most of the cheating you accuse Poole of is not cheating but pushing the rules to their limits. If it was blatant cheating they would have been penalised, as BV were for hosegate. And how on earth did we cheat to beat you to the title last year? Are you on about gogglegate? That was not cheating. It was perhaps foolhardy of the rider but that was up to the ref to deal with, and nothing morenthan that. Never looked forward to my trips all the way up to Manchaster when half the time the weather looks dodgy, but weather permitting I shall be there in two weeks time.