Steve Shovlar

Harris exclusion was farcical. And I am a Magic fan.

Bloody cycling over running on Eurosport.

Seriously folks people shouln't worry about my posts and I doubt I will post much anyway. Looking forward to visiting the new Belle Vue stadium with Poole in the Shield but am yet to see how they can build A new stadium in Blunsdon in time for 2016, when they haven't even started it yet. Perhaps they could build it at Stow on the Wold and ground share with Coventry.

Well its been a while so thought i would join in the discussions a bit. Thanks to all for the very expected mixed reception

Hi all, Just got back from Rome. Nice out there. Thought I would put my head in after 18 months to say hello. Might even be tempted to post a little. Place looks like it needs a wake up. Thoughts?🌞

Really BSI need to come out and say if you ride in the SEC your don't ride in the GP series. Riders want to be world champ. They don't care so much for European Champion. Means nothing in the Scheme of things and proved by Emil now upset at making a bad call and missing out on the chance of becoming world champion this season. Never mind Emil you have the SEC to look forward to. LOL! Now Woffinden. Absolutely terrible this season. A year ago this is exactly what I would have expected. But not now and he is giving up his crown without even a whimper. If he knows what the problem is he should have done something about it. By the look of things nearly every other rider in the series has stolen a march on him. Why is he riding last years bikes? No money in the pot? Looks like he is on a slug. No fight at all. When interviewed last night I didn't think it was so much his back room staff, but perhaps an injury. Did he damage something when he crashed at Leicester? Does he need an operation? One thing is for sure. He needs to be on the podium at the next GP or he can start to write this season off.

Cracking meeting. Well done KK glad you gotr your first GP win. Should have been in NZ but made up for it tonight. Thanks god that super bore Hampel didn't win. Most boring rider in the series? Bad luck to Darcy who got his season underway with a great score. But for the injury he is carrying he might have won the thing tonight. Glad to see Holder coming back towards his best. Still not fast enough but the fight is there. As for the Brits god help us. Woffinden looks as bad as Harris. Surrendered his crown already IMO. Little fight and slow. Great GP, loads of great racing and a cracking final. Shame about the crowd but take one GP away from Poland is the answer.

Passing off the second bend doesn't count. Watched it live and thought it was a poor meeting. Hopefully better tomorrow.

Just watched it and a dull meeting with very little passing. By the way it is possible to watch these streams, though not sopcast, on an iPhone or iPad. Just download the photon browser, which costs a couple of quid, and it streams flash very well.

Can't agree wit that. Clearly it was 100% Smolinskis fault. A racing accident absolutely but only one person caused it.

Not none sense at all, bit of common sense. Matt said, " I felt a sense of injustice when German Martin Smolinski celebrated on one wheel, punched the air with delight and spoke of Saturdays debut win in the NZ GP as being on of the greatest days of his life. Please don't get me wrong, what Martin produced on Saturday was something quite unbelievable. To come from last to first in a GP final is a stunning achievement, particularly on your first taste amount speedways elite field. And it's certainly nothing against Martinbwho I have always had the greatest respect for. He's earned his right to bein the GP this season and the rest of the top boys know he is not there just to make up the numbers. The reason I am angry and confused is the way speedway allows rough justice to go unpunished. Without any question, when Martin hit a rut and T Boned Darcy Ward into the fence and out of the meeting in he at 14 it was an unintentional move. A complete accident. But the fact is it ended Darcys GP involvement, suffering concussion, a broken thumb, a dodgy knee and has put him out of speedway for anything up to six weeks. Yet for my money, it's no different from an over the top tackle in football. A player races in tries to get the ball,but takes out his opponent instead. However, the difference in punishments are polar opposites. A footballer will be either immediately red carded, and miss the rest of the match, or suffer a booking, which could lead to him missing games in the near future. What happened to Martin, in this instance, was he suffered an exclusion, when he was last anyway. And that was it. That's all anref can do within speedways current rules. I remember watching a meeting at Brandon a few years ago when a similar thing happened. In the first ride he overlooked a corner and sent the opposing reserve into the fence and out of the meeting in his first ride. In his next race he did exactly the same thing and ko'd the other Ipswich reserve, putting him out. But this rider was still able to go out and race for the rest of the meeting helping his side win against the opponents who had to race several races with three riders only. In my book, although he didn't mean to injure the riders in both cases he caused a major problem and wasn't punish for it. As far as I was concerned on Saturday in Auckland, Martin Smolinski accidentally took out an opponent but suffered no disciplinary punishment, and less than an hour was top of the podium! If it had been a football match and Luis Suarez had produced an accidental but clearly bad challenge on an opponent that had seen this layer stretchers off to hospital and out of the game for six weeks, and then had gone on to score a hat trick, there would have been a riot in football about the injustice of it all. And before anyone claims I am biased towards Darcy, believe me, Inwouldnhave said exactly the same thing if our skipper had done the same thing."

Matt Ford was smack on the money with his program notes last night about the Smolinski incident.

So the new by stadium is going to cost over 5 million quid? For a field with a shale track and a stand on one side and grass banking around the other parts? April Fools day has already gone. Someone is seriously taking the P with these figures. Eddie Mitchell isn't the builder, is he?

Overall a good GP. Some good racing but very rutty up the inside. NP is the leader but we all know he will have poor GPs along the way. Woffy clearly unfit, Holder still not fully race fit and Darcy getting flattened to take away the opportunity of making the semis. Crowd looked decent though wether it's enough to go back there next year is another matter. The crowd looked comatosed at times. Guess no local man to cheer didn't help and probably many of them didn't have a clue who was who.

Oh well fair play to him. A good final. KK should have won that but drifted too wide. Idiot.

JesuS bloody wept there is no justice. A guy that wrecks Darcys night then flukes a win. Terrible

Cons idering Ward took a whack it wasn't unexpected he didn't clear. Right call though. Batch must be hurting.

Well I have just read the article in today's Speedway Star and a what a jumped up little beep Robert Lambert comes across as. He is going to refuse to ride for Team GB, will not ride in the British U21's, even though he is seeded through to the final, and says he is going to continue riding on a German license. Just because the BSPA have safe guards in for young riders and won't allow 500cc competitive racing for U16's. Regarding Team GB and U21's. "The British authorities haven't really helped me, so I don't feel as if I need to help them out in any way. I wouldn't do it. There is such a sour taste in my mouth if I did do a meeting, I wouldn't go out and put in 110%. There is such a sour taste in my mouth I wouldnt put myself out to do it. I have got german fixtures in place. It's funny that they're seeding me through and I think they are trying to get me back over here. That's not going to happen". Oh dear. Jumped up little $h/t comes to mind. Just because the UK has rules regarding young riders which he doesn't agree with he throws a massive tantrum and refuses to ride for his country or do the U21's. He might be a precocious talent for his age but it seems he is already alienating British speedway fans. Which is a shame as by saying such things he could well will miss out on lucrative sponsorship deals. Showing his immaturity I guess. Thoughts?

Hopefully a big crowd but I wouldn't be sad to see it go. Our season started, then stalled because of this meeting, which should either be at the end of February or in early November.

Sporting disasters like yesterday unfortunately happen in all sports. A few years ago England were playing a one day match in the West Indies. The crowd was in, sky were showing it live, and it was called off at the last minute because the players said the pitch was dangerous underfoot. So even Cricket has the same issue from time to time, and come off the pitch at the slightest drizzle.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/19/sport/tai-woffinden-speedway-tattoos/index.html CNN, an American channel, now running a story on Tai. Has he been signed up by a large PR company? If not why not? Carl Fogarty recently posted on his twitter that Tai was about to become Britains next sporting superstar. To do so needs a serious media team behind him. Hope he gets one in place to organise his off race night calendar.

The FIM could certainly ban him if they see his withdraw for the GP series as a snub to them over a competition they are at war with.

Absolutely. Red Bull compete with Monster and I would be very surprised of they were very angry at this decision. I think they only have Hampel now as a sole representative in the GP series. wouldn't be surprised if another rider tried to contact Red Bull to tap up Emil's sponsorship deal for themselves. Monster have Tai, Darcy and Chris on board compared to Hampel at Red Bull.

Regardless of Emils ability, there should be absolutely NO wildcard for him in 2015. If he decides he wants to participate next season, he HAS to do the qualifiers this season. We don't want him thinking he can thumb his nose at the World Championship and then just walk back in when he feels like it.

Rarely do we see eye to eye on here but I see we are both of the exact same opinion. And to say that the World Champion in 2014 will be tarnished with what if Emil rode scenario, as far as I am concerned it will make no difference to whoever wins the title. They will be worthy of being called WC. Emil can go play in these small unimportant SEC meetings and leave the glory to those who care about being the best.