Nickinho

If Sedgy had held on to that last bend lead in Heat 13 the score going into the final heat would have been 42-42. Tigers should have done much, much better.

He's a good young rider but a bit overrated in my opinion. Still one of the better 2 point riders in the league though and he's got a whole lot of time on his side.

Good decision by the Brummies imo. Wrighty was struggling with injury and Pearson wasn't doing great. The Sam Hagon switch is almost like-for-like and Batch is the third heat leader that Birmingham needed to stop the rot. Just my opinion though.

I agree. Of all the 2 point riders in this league young Sam is one of the better ones.

Believe it or not there's monsoon conditions in Glasgow atm. If the track has already been watered then there's a real danger of this meeting being called off depending on which direction this large black cloud is heading next.

From the bspa site. The figure is from his first two championship meetings. I wasn't saying that's what he's normally but so far that's his official total. Normally it's around 7 but he's not started well (at championship level)

Obviously they aren't the official ones until a requisite number of meetings have been raced but they are how they (unofficially) stand as of today. You're right though, it doesn't look very good.

GSA for the Monarchs tonight (number of qualifying meetings in brackets): 1 Sedgman (2) 4.73 2 Paco (3) 5.54 3 Borke (1) 3.00 4 Kye (4) 6.44 5 R/R 6 Wood (1) 2.67 7 Lasse (4) 5.56

I see. I didn't know that. I was led to believe that he had touched down a couple of days before and the management were trying to find someone to offer him a room because his bikes were stored on the east side of Edinburgh. He still looked okay on his debut though and he didn't appear overawed by the occasion. Definitely one for the future.

I thought Bastian did well considering he made his debut after arriving in Scotland for the fist time a couple of days before he took to the track.

Nicholls and Sedgman in for Pickering and Cook?

Alex Harkess being interviewed at the end of the meeting last night: "We just gave away too many points tonight" 51 to be precise.

I have a history of having a bad back and sometimes have problems with it and i'm not a speedway rider who has sustained several accidents over the years so i can fully understand why he wouldn't want to risk riding with it. I don't believe as some others seem to do in that Cookie has lost his enthusiasm because his average is over well over 9 points atm and he really seemed like he was 'dialled in' this season. I'm sure he will be back soon but i wouldn't advise coming back too early from a bad back because those problems, left unchecked or aggravated, can really manifest themselves in later life.

Leon's career went downhill after that.

Lots of Tigers fans seem to be getting carried away with their 64-26 rout of the Brummies last Friday but Oxford went to Perry Bar last night and beat them 54-36. I don't think that any results against Birmingham are a good indicator of any team's strength as they are shockingly bad this season, possibly even worse than Newcastle were last season before they folded, and the Monarchs secured an easy win there too. Imo, i think tomorrow evening will be a lot different especially with both teams expected to change riders around in the rider order and two new faces coming in for Edinburgh. It'll be close.

I'm glad to see that the Edinburgh management weren't afraid to make changes when the had to but i still feel sorry for Hooky and Kyle. If anyone was in line to be dropped it was Paco as he has been dreadful this year (except when he's competing to get into the GP's...)

Superb meeting yesterday at Armadale and all the young lads and lasses put on some great entertainment in the British Youth Championships and i thoroughly enjoyed the 44,000 heats for only a tenner. There were a couple of nasty looking crashes but thankfully everyone was able to walk back to the pits and everyone seemed to improve in confidence as the meeting wore on. The future of British speedway looks bright.

So you're saying Novak is better than Douglas, Masters and Morris?

Just wish Cami had some foresight...

What if? After the result the other night i started thinking about how we should not have let Hume and Bailey go to bring in Novak and Complin. With hindsight it was a mistake and i was never too keen on seeing Harris back for the Tigers either. If there had been any chance of bringing in Charles Wright instead of Chris Harris this could have been the Tigers team this season: 1 Basso 8.52 (returnee) 2 Vissing 5.00 (new addition) 3 Wright 7.40 (new addition) 4 Hume 5.68 (returnee) 5 Brennan (c) 6.71 (returnee) 6 Bailey 4.32 (returnee) 7 Pijper 2.00 (new addition) 39.63 Out: Broc, Ulrich and Cookie. Thoughts?

I remember years ago one of the track staff spotting something on the track at Ashfield and pulling up a small piece of barbed wire from under the shale. All sorts of small objects can get into the shale before it's laid. Could have been a small ball bearing, anything.

It's simply his WEIGHT. It was a stinking hot evening yesterday and he struggled because he is FAR TOO OVERWEIGHT for wearing leathers in those kind of conditions and going out in 4 races on a speedway bike. That's it. There's nothing else wrong with Lee, he can get points on colder evening against inferior opposition but don't expect him to rack up any points during a heatwave. You'll see what i mean on Friday night if the weather forecast is accurate.

They ALL risk their lives every time they go out on the track but so do firefighters and i don't wish to see someone employed by the fire brigade riding at number 6 if he's incapable of keeping up with the opposition. Lee needs to start losing a LOT of weight to be effective on a bike again and on hot days like yesterday he was not able to compete because of that additional timber. Harsh but true.

He would double your points total every meeting

Paco is 5 races away from the GP series and also 5 races away from picking up a point for the Monarchs. I think if anyone should be dropped it's him. The Monarchs could bring in a 5-pointer from the continent to replace him. Anton Karlsson would fit perfectly as i'm sure he would come in on a 5. He's only 22 and regularly mixes it with the like of Lindgren and Fricke in the Swedish league and never looks out of place. Paco seems to have lost interest in Championship racing and whilst he's a nice character he's been completely ineffective on the track this year and is doing nothing for the team by travelling back and forth across Europe and not even being here for important ties. Sadly, there aren't many options to replace Bickley but Edinburgh could possibly look to loan Sam Hagon from Oxford. It's a difficult one to fix because everyone had high hopes at the start of the season that Lasse and Jacob would take the next step up in class but they simply haven't and i don't think there will be any more significant progress from either of them this year. Still, it's a long season but at the moment things don't look so good for the Monarchs.