Big Al

Bit of harmless banter i think ....meanwhile, during the weather disruptions to track work up at BP, Glyn's Tommy Cooper impersonation lessons clearly still need a bit of work...... (see the most recent picture in the Gallery section of the Leicester Speedway website)

Purely on principle, I think Hemsley should tough it out because this year,the rest of the Elite league will have to accept the Saturday fixtures. But he needs to be very careful to avoid achieving merely a pyrrhic victory, and therefore needs to be seen to, and actually doing, as much as possible to assist the other promoters and their needs (and the needs of their riders). The team Leicester would put out, would probably get tonked away from home, but win some at home. However, there's a big chance they'd be rock bottom of the league and so he would need to be very careful about how much he charges people for admission.

So - evenly matched teams (on Saturdays) for BP matches, and regular thrashings away. Not good for the quality of the league, as if it needed further reduction. Doesn't look like there's a lot of choice for the Elite League than to accept this.

One of them will be Zagar

Possibly Coventry have agreed (reluctantly i would imagine) to let Leicester run on a limited number of Fridays. Together with this squad system, which Lakeside have gone public with (more info awaited from BSPA, of course), it could add up to fudging a way through for Leicester. I would expect that Leicester's squad will be mostly PL level riders, but you never know they may entice someone of Heat leader calibre, just don't expect him/them to make too many appearances.

Most are provisional,so clearly there are things going on......but the away fixtures are all "definite" which would suggest impending change of race night is the likelier cause

Isn't the Polish league the bigger overall problem for Leicester - and this isn't a factor for Fridays? Arn't Friday/GP clashes generally avoided in the fixtures planning? So I'd say yes, Fridays would probably have been OK for Jason especially with him being UK-based.

But what could the Bspa/other promoters actually DO to help?Force riders at gunpoint to sign and ride for Leicester? It's hard to think of anything which would resolve the predicament. Even if Leicester were to do something like change race night, it sounds unlikely it would be of much use now, the horses have bolted. This is looking desperate now.

Its not in the clique. And would the clique be sorry to see Leicester go? It's a different situation to when Birmingham exited 2 years ago - 10 teams down to 9 whereas now it would be 8 teams down to 7, but it would potentially make a few riders available (not heat leaders of course) but i bet that KL would happily snap up Auty, and maybe Cov wud have Walasek without much hesitation.

You are spot on there. It's probably reached the point where the other promoters will have to almost enforce it, but i hope that Hemsley gets something in exchange, because it was the other promoters who admitted Leicester into the league with a Saturday race night.

Sounds like there is a promoters meeting taking place today at BSPA? I think the agenda is usually about sorting out the fixture list, but can't help thinking it will also include Leicester's current predicament. Will the other promoters be amenable to helping, or will they just leave things to evolve with the risk of one team going into the season seriously under strength?

Sounds like Dave Darcy should take over things generally, including sorting out the team.....

I've read the quote by Dave Darcy on the Bookface (or whatever its called) section on the Leicester website - it gives the impression that it's been DD who's been getting in DH's ear about modifying the track......if that's the case then well done to him in getting a result because i can imagine it was probably like trying to persuade Maggie Thatcher that she was wrong.

Curious, isn't it? Can't help think there are other factors at work than David Hemsley finally "seeing the light" and giving-in to supporters criticism.Anyway, whatever the reasons, I'm not just presuming the changes will work in terms of creating more options for riders, so will be anticipating opinions and hopefully judge for myself after racing has resumed for at least a couple of months. I also hope the excellent drainage installed when the track was initially built, and has saved many a match from being cancelled, will continue to be as effective with, by the sound of it, relatively minor adjustments (which has possibly helped a lot to keep the cost down to the figure quoted by Glyn).

Well that's good news I had heard from somewhere (cant be sure where/who) that modifications to track could entail major work to the drainage obviously incurring big costs.

What about the drainage?

Yep, after 5 years of sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting "lalalala, don't want to hear that", he's found that by taking his fingers out, there's some sense being said. If that's what you call "listening", I'm Frasier Crane.

Held to ransom?? Absurd. The situation just became incompatible and parting of the ways was a natural outcome of that.

Apparently he's based in the UK, and supports Liverpool. So that probably gives him exemption status. If it was legal I'd keep DH tied to a chair in a locked room during this work being done.

The skill involved in sticking to the racing line (note singular) and thereby denying a quicker opponent from getting past is rather different to anticipating, reacting to and blocking a rider's moves on a track which offers multiple racing lines.Similarly, the need for team riding is rendered almost redundant where the racing line is the singular variety.Maybe at BP the team riding goes on in bends 1 and 2, for instance Kauko and Magnus used to have a neat little double move going on - but after that..?? I don't think it's just a simple case of "either/or" - you can get entertaining matches with the "right" result. Yes, a belter of a heat 15 decider (with the right outcome) can very occasioally outweigh 14 heats of procession sometimes because you go away with that race in your mind.

It certainly could be at times. Sometimes it had to be prepared so as toget ameeying on and completed.But that was well balanced by the opposite. No trouble passing at BP for visitors? I raise you Craig Cook at his NL prime struggling for 3 laps to get past Alex Edberg in 2013 for one example!

Well i look forward to my ashes being taken along there, gee cant wait

I wonder if there's the slightest chance, given the comment about race night, that DH will have an 11-th hour change of mind? When they approach riders, do they ask "if we had the home matches on Xday instead of Saturday, would that make a difference?". It seems a bit illogical, with a general move to soecific race nights in the pipleine for 2017 and beyond, not to take the step now especially if it could make the difference to producing a supportable team for 2016.It would be a massive shame to throw away the strength that exists at the bottom end of the team. Unfortunately the biggest horse has already bolted from the stable. BTW, Not expecting you to interrupt your slumber with a reply to this HH!

Netto -a Danish company I think? Sounds like he might have fished something from out of the skips round the back.

He'd have more chances shopping at Lidl or Aldi, but it might have to be food banks for his best chance!