SCB

It's actual Henriksson Anders did seem to find himself in a spot of bother quite often trying to pass people. He was just a bit crap at it. But he was a very good gater, certainly at Newport. He often went missing at away meetings. Kind of rider most clubs would probably love to have really, scoring well at home 95% of the time and was loved by the fans as he had a bit of charisma. He and Carl Stonehewer had a number of clashes over the years, I remember him coming back mid-2001 and his first meeting back being vs Workington and him bascailly riding through Stoney on the 4th bend of heat 13 to take the lead and Stoney not being best pleased that time too. Some of the holes he could make on the 2nd bend for his team mate were impressive too, certainly knew how to use his elbows!

I prefer to watch my team. If thats not an option then individual generally. I don't get fake teams. Riders do it at testimonials all the time, what a waste of time Who cares if the Darcy Ward drunk selects beats the Chris Holder stay-away select? I also can't get into Swedish or Polish speedway in any big way as I don't care about any of the teams. At least when it's Poole vs Eastbourne I want Eastbourne to win (or Poole to lose more importantly) or Wolves vs Lakeside I want Wolves to lose etc etc. So it's my team, individual, then teams that I care about.

I'll give you one bloody great excuse. British Speedway has ended on 31st October for a long as I can remember. So there no reason why they should NOT still be running

Would make sense. I thought wildcards started in 2002 and Andy rode at Cardiff at least once meaning 2001.

They can't. As this is only a one off for a big meeting.

There were no wildcards back then. The first wildcard would have been Billy Hamills in 1999 when they made a special case for him due to injury. It wasn't until about 2002/2003 they had actual wildcards.

Of course thats track advantage. It's the advantage of having a track your riders can ride. It's their home track. Thus home track advantage.

Or maybe people like pandorum are the people that promoters should be trying to tempt back and keep happy?

Surely there is as much chance of a rider hitting the side of his head as the top of his head. Or riders would need full helmets, just the bit on the top of their head

But you can't use stats to prove a point and then ignore them when they disprove your point Arguing that that you used to win at home by a little bit but lose away is not home track advantage is a barmy logic. If a team scored 65 at home and 65 away they are a good team with 0 home track advantage. If a team scores 30 at home and 30 away they're a poor team with zero home track advantage. If you're a team that scores 46 at home and 36 away you're a poor team with a reasonable home track advantage, if you score 56 at home and 43 away you're a good team with the same reasonable home track advantage. From that, although you can determine the level of home track advantage you cannot possible say which track is the more exciting. The issue is people using stats badly. Not using stats. There is absolutely zero correlation between the entertainment levels of a track the level of home track advantage as some Somerset fans have tried to argue for years.

You were not the only one to leave. I've genuinely never seen to many people drift out of a meeting purely down to the time taken to run it. Yes after a crash late on and even when there team is soundly beaten but not because its dragging on. To make matters worse Im sure there was little to no passing that day and the meeting had started with a huge crowd. A massive own goal by the promotion.

The Welsh Open at Newport in about 2009. It took 50 minutes to run one race because Kevin Doolan kept knocking others off and being put back in the re-run! Was a boiling hot day after the GP and it took about 5 hours to run a single meeting with 21 heats. It felt like an eternity too due to track work and the heat - plus the hang over form the day before.

Willowman - just because Sheffield have home advantage doesn't mean Somerset can't. Somerset have always scored a lot more at home than away. I don't think it's an unfair track by any stretch of the imagination and you'll see my previous posts I've said how great a track it is but that doesn't alter the fact the track has lays had a reasonable amount of home track advantage. A few years back I took every teams home and away scores over a 4 or 5 year period as a % and Somerset come out quite high. Sheffield and Edinburgh also come out high. At the time Stoke and Reading were quite low.

Seems like a lot of expense for U21 level. Hopefully it will tie in with the GP.

Have you really just used Simon Walker as proof of a lack of home track advantage? He had an 8 point home average and a 4 point away average. Yes he was great to watch at Somerset but some of the worst proof ever of a lack of home advantage. For the record, Somerset have always had a pretty good home advantage.

It depends on the wording of the question. Do I want to pay to watch Ward? Probably. Do I think Ward should be in the GP series? Yes. Do I think he should be banned for turning up to a GP over the limit? Yes. I like watching Ward, he's what I pay for. But that doesn't mean I don't think there should be no fair justice and so he should be banned. And I'm with Pete Adams, any ban should/could be for his own good too. Great speedway rider but he's off the rails and need putting back on them or by the time he's in his 30s he'll have been in prison and thrown away what could be a damn good career. so yes out him back in the GP series if you're happy to see him for 2 or 3 years before he's gone for good. Or take him out for a year and then possibly have 20 more years of him doing what he does best.

Agreed. If there was a lack of skill how do the home team have such a home track advantage? Surely the advantage is knowing the line to use and how to ride that line - which is a skill. It's just a different skill. For me, the thing with Somerset (and Peterborough is the same), there doesn't have to be a pass. Just the perception that one is about to happen and at tracks like Somerset (and Peterborough, Scunny and a few others) you just know there is always a chance as even when it's not at it's best, there still isn't one obvious line. The straights are so wide that someone riding the white line on the bends doesn't end up on the fence for the straights to be able to turn in like at 90% of tracks so there always room. Go wide on the straight to block and you've left a gaping hole down the inside. Watching Magosi for Berwick there a few years back was hilarious as he was trying to go white line to fence so he could block and just kept getting himself in a mess - eventually he "got" Emil Krammer who just dived back under him Great track, great food. rubbish car park (almost literally if you end up in the over flow car park!)

No. He just has to maintain the stadium and pay all the associated costs.

Ive been a long time moaner of the speedway star but to suggest people buy a programme for a speedway star is madness. 4 or 5 pages of inane waffle and ones clubs news vs many pages of news form all clubs plus the odd interview. The Star beats every single programme hands down and only for a fraction more cost wise.

So out with the sporting contest and in with the popularity contest? What a joke.

It's a brilliant track. Honestly never seen a duff meeting there and seen many brilliant meetings.

Rain off dates were Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

Surely Hall as a reserve is a no brainer. Two points gained straight away without trying

Same here. Would love to spend a few weeks in Aus/NZ and get to a couple of GPs

TBF to the White Knight here. While you're right his views are contradictory, so are ours as supporters of a GP series and a play-off system. What it ultimately shows is that we can all see the positives and the negatives in one over over a full season. While it does rile me a bit that for the 2nd time in 21 years of GP history the Aussies get the final GP while us Brits have yet to have it once despite hosting 21 GPs, most of which have been at Cardiff so been the biggest attended GP of the series each year. I can see that having more GPs further afield is a good thing. To the point that I actually want to go to Aus, so tying it in with a GP would be perfect for me. I just need to find someone who fancies 2 or 3 weeks in Aus next October/November.