weatherwatcher

Has anyone any idea when the road up to the disabled parking will be open again. All the council site tells you is that they are working on the road crossing bridge and the road is closed, I could not see a completion date for the work. It has put the dampers on me coming, as I can't get to the track any other way. Never get up the slope in my wheelchair the other way, the same goes for a few others who attend.

I have been going there since they where a PL side. Seen far to many nasty crashes on both bends. More due to the fact that they all get to that fisrst corner and have nowhere else to go if all 4 riders are going for the only racing line there is out of those first 2 bends, suprised that no one has been seriuosly hurt before now, hope that the track changes to bends 3/4 not only make for better racing, but also it cuts out the factor of to many accindents on that bend. I have all faith that Glyn, that what he has done these past weeks will be the correct way forward, a real shame that the work on 1/2 never had a chance. To get started, just hope that the summer break makes that work possible.

Nine out of ten times they are going to crash. All going for the one line out of the bend, so still expect to see quite a few coming togethers on turn one.

It is good to hear that they have finally managed to get a main sponser for the club again. It must have been a very difficult time just keeping things running on gate money. None of the EL clubs can get things up and running without some form of backing.

It wasw good to see the response from Simon Stead on the SCB site. They way he and Robbo actually spent time with these lads is something that them both seem proud to have been asked to go along to help out, I liked the way he said that when he was this age they never got the chance to do something like this as the funding was just not avilable for them to do anything like this. At last the big guys have sat up and realised that British speedway had no riders that where world class, bar a couple of riders Woofy and Bomber who is now getting to the twilight of his speedway days. It is perhaps 20 years now that we could pick and chose what riders rode for the British team, there where so many good riders around then, after that it just slid into a time of no comitment to help British lads come to the top of the business. Mainly with the Elite league having all the top world riders for that period until they could no longer meet the silly money they where asking fo. But there where far to many overseas riders in the EL and the promoter just didn't seem to want to bring in any young British lads to help them progress. I hope now they have learnt thier lesson and what they have now started to do, carries on. Then we just have a British team that can go out on track and bring back quite a lot of silver ware.

The week ahead seem to be a rather bit unpredictable. From the models I have been looking at I think the worst we will get are just a few showers, I hope they have got it right. It looks like Scotland, Ireland and North Wales are going to be in for the worst of the weather. We are set to get a few days with the weather being a little warmer around Tuesday and then another cool spell later in the week, this looks like it will stay that way for quite a bit of March, but that is only what they are guesing from the models they do. So it is like all the other reports we get with the great British weather. It is just to confusing to really say what is going to happen from day to day as things can change so fast here.

Now Lakeside have taken on another one of the Lions failed riders this time in Lewis Bridger, just hope for thier sakes that he last a little longer there than he did at BP. He is such a wated talent, that could have gone a long way in the sport, if only he had managed to get his head sorted out. It is very hard and a very dark tunnel that people with depresion go through, we sufferered it with my daughter, it is not only the person themselves who suffer it is the parents or patners too. Luckily after 5 suicide attempts and 3 lovely children, my daughter got her life sorted out. Just ho;pe that Lewis has managed to do the same thing since he left the Lions last year.

Just seen on the SCB website, that Bajarnie Pederson has lasted even less time that he did with the Lions. He has not even turned a wheel for Lakeside and they have give him the order of the boot.

There have been far to many false promises, the last couple of years, last year he was going to get a team together to make all the Lions fans proud of and hopefully be up there in the top 4, it didn't happen. Lat closed season was going to see new grandstands and riders changing rooms and showers built, it didn't happen either, there has been no main sponser since Rapid left, that can't help with the funding either, so what he has now, is just enough to get a team together with no real class in there. Not sure what the average age of the team is if you take Simonez and the 2 reserves out of the eqation. I know that this is the worst EL we have ever seen, but it has to be seen that there is just not enough in the Piggy bank to bring in a top rider, what with the crowd levels falling off last year, the gate reciepts must have been well down, If the Lions fail to produce the goods after 6 or more meetings, it could get even worse, maybe a few more will come back at the start of the season to see if it does improve the racing, but the fans will soon lose heart if the Lions are sitting at the bottom of the table for long. I do hope it does work out, something needs to be done to bring back a big name sponser, a club just can't get by, from gate money alone. I would hate to see the Lions disappear off the speedway scene again, because so much hard work was put into getting it back again, it would be a big disshouner to all those people to lose it again. The Lions where doing well in the PL. But thier venture into the top flight has not worked as it.

Until DH gets to a point where he is going to spend some serious money on the infastructure in and around the track and more so to pay to get in some bigger named riders, then the Lions will always be the poor relative of the EL. He is still trying to run an EL team with the same sort of outlay he had when they where in the PL. Be far better if he could actually get someone that has a true interest in the sport to buy the club, can't see that happening either.

Teams are still racing in tired old 1960's dog tracks, people will not bother turning up to watch speeday in stadiums that should have been brought up to the 21 st century instead of being stuck in a time walp. There is not one stadium that can even come close to the ones that the Poles have built and never will. The promoters are just scrappin by. And until someone comes along and builds 8 new stadiums around the country and give the sport a good sponser, plus loads of advertising. Then it will carry on the way it is going, until the race with no one watching. The sport is now dead on it's legs and going no where very fast. I saw the glory years of the sport all we have now is nothing but a second rate sport, in a country that lies at the bottom of the pile, that riders from overseas, want to come to race. The promoters have niether will will or the money to get the worlds top riders back over here.

No one person would be able to take control of all the clubs and the infastructure ie the tracks as very few teams actually own thier own stadiums, but really on other landlords to supply them with somewhere to race, that is until they get a better offer for the land and sell it off for development, As has happened so many times before. The only way they would want to do something like that is if they owned the clubs and all the tracks outright, but that will never happen, plus as stated above the promoters would never in a million years give over the power they now have to anyone else and take orders from them. They are the rulers of thier own little kingdoms, only listening to themselves and each other. Not taking the slightest interest of anything the fans have to say. Until that say comes when they do sit up and take note, then nothing is going to change, fans will keep drifting away until clubs can no longer afford to run and end up with another few clubs lost, because that is the way it is going now. They have got to re-write the script,, somehow, make it more attractive, I don't know the answer, but the have to do something, to get people interested in the sport again, I have said it before on here, there must be thousands of people out there who have no idea, that there is even a speedway club in thier own towns, there is no sponsership, since they lost Sky's money, even far less in the way of any advertisement about the clubs. I can remember years ago going by Long Eaton's stadium, with posters letting people know when the next meeting was, for half a mile or so around the club, When did you last see one of those anywhere, I can't remember seeing one in years. They need to pull up thier socks fast, before the whole speedway scene of what is the EL, becomes nothing more tahan back into the days of a rider who rode because he loved the sport. Spending best part of his spare time in the shed down his garden getting his bike ready for the next meeting, then strapping it on the back of his car to get to the meeting. They will not be able to run around in custom vans because there will be only peanits in payment for a win, just the love of racing.

Don't know, it all seemed to have got lots of fences build around it and far to close, not sure if that was all the land the council would let them have, but there seems to be far to much waste land around BP, that they could have had at least another 100 feet or more around the track. It is like it was built around a postage stamp, when they had a perfect blank canvas to have built the best stadium in the country. It is a little bit like the EL teams they must have been on the same lines all on a very tight budget.

I run my own weather station here in South Derbyshire, it is a semi profetional Davis weather station and is to withing .0.1c and within 0.1mm rainfall. It could be that Leicester had more rain than we have had but I would not of thought it would have been very much more..

It must have rained differently in Leicester, to what we have been getting in South Derbyshire, the records from my weather station shows a total of 75mm this year which is around average. The back end of last year was well below what we narmally get. I only have to go into Burton-on-Trent and see the washland there that usually resemble a huge lake when the rain is really bad, it is nothing like that so far this winter. Just hope that the work will get done one day as it would be such a shame not to ever get the work finished. With not many weeks to go before the season starts up again, is there any fear that the track will be unfit at the start of the coming season. With the next couple of months being some of the wetter ones of the year.

Nothing, bar clearing the ditches up, did,t think it was going to happen after all the talk about the weather, there has been at least a good week with no rain of any significance falling. So it could have been done, by now. Not sure when It will get altered now. Next season probablly. As for not having my heart into the speedway this year, this is the worst EL I can remember. You have 2 teams that are worth a note and the rest, the other six are terrible to say the least, we are paying an extra £2 entrance fee, to watch a team that is going to stuggle along again, I can see a couple of them leaving in a few mmonths time and then where does it leave the Lions. It would have been better to have gone back down to the PL at least we would see some decent racing. Not sure what this coming season is going to be like but I think it will be a mediocre season. I can go to Darly and watch 3 times as much racing for half the cost of what will will to get into watch the Lions and it is the same distance from where I live. Will next year be any better and will the Lions still be up and running in the EL or PL or will the stadium be sold on.

I can see me spending more time at Darley Moor, this year than at BP. Will just have to see how things go, but not much in the way of being optomistic about things so far. May be in for a suprise, thought Norrie said at the end of season speach, track side, that there was no way that they would be having any Danes in the team again, so what happened.

The 2 meetings that he guested for the Lions at home was a treat to watch. He rode his heart out. He is one of those tiders you would want in your side. He dosn't give up at go to the back of the field like er see some riders do, if he is at the back then you know he will still give it is all. Really like the Guy and don't think he would be a bad rider to sign up. That is if he wants to ride a Saturday, which seems to have put paid to getting quite a few riders to come here.

You are correct on that score, of riders asking for silly money, it all started years ago and the promoters just went along and paid up. Then things started to sink in with them when the clubs, where nearly in a state of going bankrupt. It was then decided that they where never going to pay these riders the stupi money any longer. That was when all the really big top names stopped coming over here. A few clubs who still had a good financial situation, could still aford to bring them over and pay them but it was only a very few clubs. I doubt the British speedway will ever get back to being a No1 in the world, where all the riders wanted to come and ride. Unless as you say the clubs can get bums on the seats, there is just not enough in the way of promoting the sport, so very few people know it even exsits, Until they can even think of a way of getting more people through the gates. There has got to be something done to make that possible.They just carry on as they have done for the last I don't know how many year. With fans leaving not by the hand full but in droves. With some clubs having so few attending that is hardly worth the effrt of opening the gates. Until they wake up to reallity and get something done about it . Things are only going to get worse.

It just seems to be taking far to long to name the last rider. We are now very close to starting the new season and we are the only club that still have not named a full team. How about one of the Laguta brothers. Plus plenty of good Swidish riders from what I saw of them last season over there, but maybe not good enough to take the heat leaders role. There must be someone out there they can tempt. Or is it just a fact they they don't want to spend out on getting a big named rider. It always seems like they like to run things, on a shoe string budget. If that is the case, then they would have been far better staying in the PL. Still having the crowds coming through the gate. With not so much to have to spend out on riders, with plenty of them willing to ride on a Saturday.

The El is a little like an old wooden building that is over 60 years old. That has had very little or no maintainance done to it in all that time. I am afraid, it is now starting to lose quite a few tiles and a few boards have strted to go rotten. This could be the year that it finally falls down.

It is by far the worst line up that the EL teams have ever fielded. If next year gets any worse that this year is, then I see no option for the clubs to call it a day with going any further with the EL. Maube now is the time to just have what has been put forward on here, one league, with a North/South split and at the end of the season, a decideder of the top 4 teams from each league coming together to see who wins a trophy, nothing like the play ofs we have now, but a genuine winner of the league. If there are still 8 teams left next year, I think they will be finding it even harder to get 7 riders per team, without the majority of those riders being made up of PL lads. So if that happens it defeats the whole reason of having an El.

Those other 3 three names do not even relate to the worlds top riders I am afraid, they are still good riders but well past thier sell by dates. The class of riders in th EL have been getting worse and worse as the years go by. As being an Elite Leaguge, I am afraid if they put this to a world wide vote, I think we would be a laughing stock.Most of the teams are fielding nothing better than you see at most PL clubs with some old stagers thrown in for good measure. Yes there are a few top riders in there but most of them gave up when the British promoters stood by thier guns and said a big NO to giving in the the stupid money they where asking to come and ride for here. Don't blame them at all, if they had carried on I dread to think how many clubs would still be left. But this year must be the worst ever for the team that have been chosen, quite sad really when you look by to the class of rider that used to be over here and not that long ago either. It is only now that they have sat back and realised, that the damage to our young British riders have been badly fotton these past 20 years or so. lets hope that with the ones coming through now, that they will soon have a few who will be able to make up a British team that we can be proud of. Just hope that whoever the last rider is to be named is one that will be good enough to take on the No1 place. As for Wozinak I think he will only get better and better this year, I really like him and hope he does well again this year.

Don't worry Fanmale I am still around and watching. Not made any coment as it didn't really fire up any cylinders when the anounced the rider. If the truth be told this is perhaps the worst EL line up of riders since I don't know when. But that said it just may produce some better racing all round with the teams being on a more even footing. The only team that could be a problem is the Australin nation team that are going to get some practice in, to help them do better in the world cup. Funny how they suddenly showed a big interest in Doyle now he has started to do bigger and better things, just hope the rest of his team can back him up. Now all we have to do is sit and wait for the last name to come out, for the Lions team place. How much would it take to get A. Laguta to do a season as heat leader. There are some decent riders out there, how many of them though want to come over here, to ride for the wages that they are actually work and really have to ride to get the points money, plus also on a Saturday night. I love it being on a Saturday as I can bring the grandson with me and without him there to help me, then I can't get there either. I can drive but have quite a struggle with my wheelchair etc. With him going to school in the week it is far to late when we don't get back home till after 11.30pm and then get up the next morning. If they do go next year for mid week for all the clubs, then I am afraid with the late starting time of meetimgs, the clubs will be losing out on quite a few younger generation, who they need to keep for thier future people to come through the gates, .

It would just be nice, if the management made a small coment on the website, letting the fans know, that at least they had a few riders to look into to fill the final team slots. But they just love to keep everything so hush hush. I saw a sign on the back of a local boxing club van today and I think it fits the bill here. When you come up against a brick wall. Eith climb over it. Over better still just go through it. Or is it just a fact that there are no riders willing to sign for the Lions. Come on give us some idea, what is actually going on