IanBrannan

It’s not a weaker league, it’s a more balanced league. Aside Basso, Dougie, Tarasenko etc who were not going to race Championship in any case due to Polish commitments, Im not sure which riders have been lost to the league? It might make teams like Poole weaker as they can’t pack 3 top averaged riders in, it doesn’t make the overall league weaker.

The Facennas are very successful business operators, if they say it’s not financially viable in Glasgow, then it is not financially viable. I have no doubt that if Premiership moved to Friday then that’s the league they would operate in, same as Birmingham who haven’t gone up out of choice, they’ve gone as Monday is the only night they can now race. To suggest they are being tight is a tad harsh when they have literally invested millions in the stadium and team, way more than any other club. But the day to day economics have to add up, they don’t feel there is a hidden community of speedway fans hiding in Glasgow who would only come out for Premiership speedway. Also the notion of a “weak” league I don’t think stacks up, it is going to be a more even league with the bigger riders spread around more but opportunities for younger riders to break through. It should make for closer league, but it’s hardly like you had Doyle Woffy & Sayfutdinov in the Championship last year. Sheffield’s traditional night is Thursday (they tried Sundays once and it was a disaster), that’s one of the reasons they are in the Premiership. And Lee Complin I seem to recall dragging Glasgow over the line to get into the Grand Final so I probably wouldn’t start by having a go at him lol. Different things work for different clubs due to various factors, Glasgow it’s Friday nights. It’s not lack of ambition, it’s good business.

I made a podcast with Peter Facenna and in it he answers this very question.. https://pod.fo/e/1f7be0 But in a nutshell, mainly race night. The numbers would probably drop and the lure of top riders wouldn't balance it out especially as said riders would want a lot more money for the privilege. So less fans, and bigger expense, and they don't think that saying Tai Woffinden is in town would really add to it enough. So it's purely a business decision, but have listen to the interview and Peter explains it very well.

For that to happen it would require the FIM to change their stance on Russian athletes, which as per Phil Morris 2 weeks ago on the No Brakes podcast, was very much firmly the same. Until FIFA or the IOC change their stance, don't expect any change from the FIM.

It’s not so much a new rule, but certainly a clarified one this year. 28th August the last day register signings for matches effective on the 31st. The ONLY exception is riders returning from injury, so for example Jack Holder can come back for Sheffield in September in place of a rider. Unlike last years Lambert situation, this year if your number 1, or any other rider is out through injury you can only use guests or RR. There is no long term injury replacement option. Guests must be registered with a British team before the 28th, so out of work riders from the continent and not currently racing here can’t come in as a guest.

No in fact Greg is commentating with me I think on Friday.

Yes defo Glasgow V Plymouth, also will see return of pieman Paul Bowen in the booth, I believe

Adam was never down to commentate at Plymouth or Poole and neither am I as I’m on the radio in the NE this week, Jason Harrold will be taking care of the southern trip and I’m doing Glasgow on Fri.

It was the spindle that came out of the front wheel, he talks about it on the track walk yesterday. It could have happened to anyone, they were on bikes provided on a training session. He chose one bike, Tai chose the other.

I guess when you’ve literally died on that track, you’d not be surprised that it doesn’t rank as a favourite. He’s not the only one to say the same though, Scott Nicholls has in an interview earlier this season for example and there are others. What one rider enjoys isn’t the same as the next, Kings Lynn has a lot of clay in the mix which make it different to many in how it rides. The interesting thing is how it has caught home riders out this year but lately seems to have been more consistent. Last night it was a lot slicker and packed than previous visits when we did the BSN track walk, possibly in part due to the weather situation.

I wouldn’t know about that, the law came in around 2019, but no idea when drones were added to the speedway rule book. If you have a professional commercially licensed pilot you may be able to do it with special clearance, but those drones and operators are fairly expensive usually. For a normal drone that most people have you would be able to no.

It's in the SCB rule book, but basically it's the same laws applying to every drone in the UK which is they have to be flown at least 150 metres away from gatherings of people.

BSN has used a drone once, at Redcar for a track flyover very much like like Discovery do which was done before the meeting. But you're not allowed to fly a drone at a British meeting whilst it's running, so fear not!

We’ll wait for further info on what’s happened, but if that is the case then that is the course of action in the rule book.

Because those are the rules for absence. The rules applied here are the ones which come into play when a rider has failed or refused anti doping/alcohol testing, seemingly. Where they are excluded from the meeting with rides only able to be taken by reserves / TS.

Well if it's first hand accounts you're looking for. For KL fans, or indeed not, Dave Hoggart is the main guest on this week's No Brakes No Fear podcast. A good 20 mins or so with him and you can find it here https://pod.fo/e/189c6a or here if you don't have a podcast app of choice and want to listen online https://britishspeedway.co.uk/podcast/ The chat is in part 2 which is about 25 mins in.

Thanks Roger, I'm not sure what you mean by the second bit. As the decision to make it a one off event was announced on the 3rd of May and explained by Phil Morris at the time. Chris Louis of course is also one of the directors of the BSPL, he is on the No Brakes podcast this week explaining everything from his point of view. Probably worth a listen as I can't add more to it really.

I really don’t understand what’s “unbelievable” about it. Emil and Laguta were never riding in the meeting due to other commitments in their schedule so chalk those off. Jason Doyle was down to ride but his meeting in Poland was cancelled last weekend, he is the only rider missing due to a conflict there. Danny King and Erik Riss were part of the Ipswich lineups which won the comp last year, Doyle couldn’t do it all on his own because it’s a team riding event. The rest of the line up features 7 of the top 10 riders, the other 3 missing are Doyle & Emil plus Charles wright, with BV having 3 riders in the top 10. Of course in there you have the current GP number 2 Jack Holder, British Champion Bewley and Max Fricke who is also Leicester track record holder so that’s 3 GP riders. Leicester race on a Thursday, and they are hosting it so this date was allocated at the start of the season with the other 2 rounds removed to make it a single event to avoid fixture congestion in the league, and was decided long before any line up was known. Last year when it ran for 5 events the line ups varied anyway. It’s 2 from the top 5 of a team, not specifically top 2. So I’d say looks fairly competitive. It’ll be a nice evening for speedway, have a solero and enjoy

Yeah well he caught them in the re run

They hadn’t completed 2 full laps so it’s impossible to award the heat anyway, plus you couldn’t say that with 2 laps to go Laguta wouldn’t catch Fricke.

It’s a fair point and there was good racing, I’ve just watched every start heat 7 to 15 back, and gate 1 was first to the turn every time (for you holeshot fans) aside heat 12 when Worrall got there first from gate 3. So might not be from the gate, but 1&3 were first to the bend every time but 1, and were first over the line even if they had changed pos during racing. Probably just coincidence.

They don’t alternate every heat though, heats 7,8,9 & 10 and 13 a team gets a run of the opposite gates to the ones they picked. So thanks to the gate choices it meant Scunny had 1 & 3, 5 times out of 7 heats, at the part of the night when the outside went off and the inside gates worked better. With the exception of heat 11 (where Redcar were on a 5-1 and blew it), every winner / heat advantage from heat 7 to heat 15 came from gate 1 & 3, and gates 2 & 4 did the business heats 1-6.

The coin toss and gate choice was significant, Rory Schlein said immediately Redcar had called it wrong going for 1&3. 2 & 4 are always better earlier before the racing line affects 4, and so that gifted Scunthorpe the best gates both early in the meeting and later when they had the better inside gates just as the outside lost its mojo. Scunthorpe opting to take the choices in heat 15 tells you they expected a close contest, gate 4 was dominant in the first half and Redcar didn’t have it when it mattered.

Yeah it has, I’ve just checked with SCB as part of interview research for the podcast and it’s defo 28 days

The rule book seems to state, (rule 010.3 in your rule books) A rider taken out of a team through injury cannot be redeclared in that same team within 28 days. Of course his average would have to fit then etc.