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Cardiff has been a pretty consistent 40k from day 1 until this season. Officially it's fluctuated from about 38k to 43k I think.

I'd still sign Compton as my 3rd heat leader/senior second string. I think if you could pair him at at 3/4 with another 6.XX rider you'd have a decent pairing and would hope one of them would step it up each meeting. Andres one of them rides I'd like in my team, takes no rubbish and when the going gets tough, up he pops. Plus he's always been a rider I've liked just to add a bit of bias to it

I've already suggested that team. So I agree! Hans in 2014? Harris in 2015? Both top 5 in the averages with bonus points.

Doesn't mean the rules don't keep favouring Poole though. But it does make it bloody perplexing as to why they keep letting them get away with it and helping them out! Clearly a bit thick most of them.

Assuming the numebr 7 has a 3 point average then you're 2 points short of the limit.

Only just seen this, missed it earlier. It cannot be done as a draft now. i the past you picked your first rider in a pre-defined order and then the 2nd rider based on your first. The theory being if you had a good rider in 1 you got a poorer rider in 2. Fine. But now if you get a better rider in draft 1, you use up more points in the points limit, so to then get a worse tier two rider you are punished. It should just be all teams have to have a tier 1 and a tier 2 rider. It should NOT be a draft. If it is a draft, I hope Coventry get Garrity to ride in the 1-5 and pick lower down the draft so they get two middle of the road riders rather than a good and a bad one.

It's unfortunate but there have to be cut-offs and limits on all sorts of things in life. Sometimes you find yourself on the wrong side of them, you have to work with it and suck it up. TBH, knowing he was unlikely to fit in 20 meeting when he first come over he would have been planning for this all along. If you allow him off now on a 6.8(?) average you have to let someone on 6.7 off next year, then 6.5 and before you know it they're back to letting everyone in again which caused all last winters crap.

If he had averaged 7+ from 10 or so meetings injury may be an argument but even when his season was ended due to injury he was not averaging 7. There are no grounds for an exemption. rubbish happens. TBH thats wrong. He should have to come back on 7. It's how it was until about 2008ish when they threw away all the rules and guidelines for Chris Kerr!

Ah, with you now! As it is, I agree, there no way he was on the fiddle. He just had a crap season.

No, we should have got him to sign a 2016 contract in June! Howarth is really not that good. I wouldn't go any where near him personally. That make no sense what so ever! Coventrys issue is they were 2 points short of the limit and had a guest who score 2 points less than you'd expect and R/R barely score anything at Poole. Build up that 2 extra points and it's 4 points more for Cov over the 2 legs, also 4 less for Poole. Thats an 8 point swing. Add in that Lindgren (a guest) under performed and you'd have expected about 3 more, thats a 6 point swing. Look at the result now with that 14 point swing. Still not enough but makes it closer. Nothing to do with riders under perfoming (other than a guest) and all to do with the team not being strong enough.

It doesn't matter. If you can sign Thorsell on 6 or Barker on 5, whos the better signing? Thorsell is in reality only a 5 point man whos been inflated by riding in an easier position. Barker is a proven 6.5 man riding in the old format. If there are other riders available who are better, on a lower average then that makes Thorsell a terrible signing. Personally, I'd be signing my second strings from the PL on converted averages or someone who had raced as many of their 20 meetings as a heat leader as possible.

When I glanced at a few riders effect by it, Davey appeared to have ridden more of his 20 meetings as a second string than a reserve. For me thats got to be the deciding factor. I'd say anyone with 11 or more meeting as a heat leader is a heat leader. But I'd not call them heat leaders. I'd call them tier 1 riders. You cna only sign 3 tier 1 riders (is riders who rode 50% of their meeting as a heat leader) but they can start 2016 as second strings. So Zengota and Summers would be tier twos, Lindgren, Hans and Bjerre wold be tier 1s but Zengi, Summers and Hans would start as heat leaders due to average. TBF, you come on here making some very naive statements. It puts you on a par with most other speedway promoters who are made fools of by Ford (I don't blame Matt or Poole speedway for this btw)

The issue is, who is out there who doesn't do that?

Daveys average will make him a heat leader but his average was achieved more as a second string than a heat leader. I'd make him a second string personally. Rory is a heat leader too. Now Kylmakorpi is a damn hard one - probably a heat leader if pushed. You have to base it on the number of meeting they rode as a heat leader to get their average really. Or you use my figures on the other thread!

Any team signing Thorsell is straight away costing themselves a point

Even with the old format he was always a 6.5 man, so he'd get that whatever the format. When you consider the like of Josh Graszonek, Rich Lawson, Aaron Summers etc are only on 5-7 point averages and are about the same level... And I may be in a minority but I like Ben. He pissed me off with his signing for us then jumping ship to Brum but I'm happy to forgive as you know when he's no track he's only ever going to give 100% and like Garrity and his "I'll put myself in the fence trying if I have to" you know Ben will do what it takes to win - imagine having two with that attitude in the same team! Would certainly make up for Bjerre lack of effort if that rumours true!

The issue with King is he only averaged just over 4 as a heat leader, so depending on how you build the rest of the team he could be stuck at heat leader doing nothing. Last year it worked as whichever one of Danny or Joonas was heat leader struggled but the other made up for it as a second string. I'd be very wary of King this year personally unless we can get someone like Lindgren who would take the heat off him as a heat leader.

Again, he almost certainly did it vs BV, possibly vs Coventry in the meeting before but I doubt he did it before that. But when it become apparent 2 or 3 meetings before new averages were due what was needed to do then they did it.

Thats not great is it?

Barker is an asset of ours on a 4.8 average. We've already let AJ go, we've already lost out on Hans (ok not ours but still) lets not lose Barker too.

You're right. And it's my laziness. Anyone whos switched teams in the last 2 years doesn't have the right parent club. Any new riders in the last 2 years don't have date of births either. I should update them or remove that info. I've always seen the site as more of a historical reference of averages and meetings results rather than an up to date list of results - so I should probably remove that info. If you wanted to dumb it down you could I guess. You still have the issue that Freddie Lindgren becomes much more sought after than say Craig Cook or Joonas Kylmakorpi due to the fact they have had an easier spell as second string though.

There is zero doubt in my mind that in 2007 Chris Harris was "tweaking" his average in our last 2 or 3 meetings. There were already rumours of a two over 8 rule coming in and he got 7.98 I'm not sure he's done it any other season though. And I'm certain he's not done it all season, it was just them 2 or 3 meetings at the end of 2007. And I'm also certain many riders ease off for the last few meetings if they have something to gain while I very much doubt there is a single rider who has ever fiddled for anything more than 2 or 3 meetings as it's just not worth it.

Its AGM week and Poole have started team building - people have to get upset!

He will be. Or it's just pointless having a heat leader lost.

It can do. I'd like to think I could by any stats anyone wanted out of it. I started by taking first checking that riders who had ridden at 1, 3 and 5 or 2 and 4 had averaged the same to make sure that there was no difference between the heat leader positions and the second string positions. Turns out the second string positions are as identical as it gets but the number 5 is a little harder than 1 and 3 slightly but not statistically enough to matter. Then I compared the riders who had raced at 1/3/5 and 2/4 and compared their second string and heat leaders averages to find a % difference. I discovered that Richard Lawson ride better as a heatleader than a second string! Some riders it makes little difference, others had a vast difference so took an average. Then I split out everyone one of the riding positions averages per heat so I could see what any trends. It turned out it made no difference using a weighting for each heats or just using a weighting for riding number so I just took the weighting I had calculated earlier (about 77% from memory), and split it, taking part off the second string and part onto the heatleaders. For the reserves I just took the reserve race averages and compared them to their non-reserve race averages, decided that was the difference between being a reserve and a second string (also about 75%), took that from the reserves averages. I'm sure I could spend a few hours making it more accurate by weighting each heat rather that just riding position but I don't think it would make much difference at all.