DaveWayne

It doesn't say Speedway ended, it says the final event at Belle Vue Stadium. I'm pretty sure the new venue isn't called that, just the team ?

Will be interesting to see if this thread gets the same hour by hour analysis of the latest forecasts as the Lynn thread did on Monday, or was that just special treatment because people don't like Buster ? I assume the Ipswich fans who were all over it, despite the meeting not involving them, will be equally critical of their own team if the forecast rain doesn't arrive. 😉

I don't disagree with that, but why post about it on an Ipswich thread ? Previous references to him on here have been accusations of him not pulling his weight away from home for Belle Vue and that he has other priorities. All you have done is to back up that theory. 😉

No, but taking 3 laps to go from 1st to last at Owlerton last week was embarassing. It's laughable that Belle Vue fans are crowing about how well Kurtz is riding in Poland. All you are doing is proving that he is far more committed to them than he is to you.

In this future world you predict, would the Polish paymasters ban them from riding in GPs as well ?

Yet met office is showing 60-90% chance of rain all afternoon and evening. Let's wait and see before we start the abuse shall we ?

Seems to me that some on here will find something to moan about no matter what happens. Met Office is currently showing 60-90% chance of rain right through from 11am so it looks like a good call. They could always have left it and then called it off when everyone was in the stadium, although at least the away fans wouldn't have travelled 5 hours like the Belle Vue fans at Ipswich a couple of weeks ago.

Genuine question for the Belle Vue fans - what are your thoughts on Kurtz shutting down on the last lap of heat 15 ? My initial thought was that he had just spat his dummy out as he had his backside handed to him on a plate and didn't like it, but I have seen a suggestion that he did it to allow Cook to take the extra point. If it was the latter, then is it just more evidence that the top riders are really just racing for pocket money over here ?

Yes, Stead confirmed this in a post match interview on twitter.

He was in a f***ing coma ffs. The info about his injuries was coming from medical professionals, not from him over exaggerating.

Was it last season, or the season before, when Sheffield called off a meeting against Ipswich at about 6pm and all the Witches fans were moaning on social media that they had travelled all that way and it should have been called sooner ? Only thing that could be worse than that is if you waited till everyone was in the stadium then had to call it off as you didn't have the correct track equipment available. 😉

Stock cars / Bangers don't run weekly at Northampton. Sometimes they are on consecutive weekends, but usually there are 2 or 3 weeks between meetings. Interestingly, I was watching interviews with F1 stock car drivers last night from the meeting held there last Saturday and they were commenting that there was more material on track than at the previous meeting. One thing that should please everyone is that I am not seeing any complaints on here about the surface being rough last night, despite there being torrential rain mid-meeting on Saturday night. If there were going to be issues I would have expected them to show up after that.

So after Ipswich fans spending the last couple of seasons complaining about how dangerous the Sheffield track is, they are all very quiet about dangerous riding by one of their team. 🤔

Etheridge was a gamble, but one worth taking with such a low average, especially if he could rediscover his form of a few seasons ago. The problem at the moment is that all of the top 5 seem to be struggling to gate consistently so they are having to try and come from behind all the time. Killeen has scored 10+5 from 5 meetings. What more is an RS expected to do ? I think he is worth persevering with as he is always pressuring and looking for a way through. Once he gets settled into the track at Owlerton I think he could surprise a few.

The 'beams' that you refer to are not going to be cut off. They support the top rope for the stock cars and are an essential part of the safety fence. They have the same thing at Kings Lynn so why would they need to be removed at Northampton ?

I stand on turn 3/4 at Owlerton so all the winners come past me and take the applause, it's only the home straight they are missing out. 😉

Tigers lost last night on the gate. None of the 3 heat leaders were getting out of the gate well, and also Flint was struggling compared to last year where his gating was key to his scoring. Not sure what has happened to Jack Holder, but his gating was poor last year for both Sheffield and in the GPs, and it looks to be continuing. Killeen could be a very good RS from what I have seen in the 2 home matches. Once he gets used to the track he could surprise a few. Battled in every race but just couldn't find the pass.

Sheffield won the KO Cup and topped the league table in 2024 with Edwards and Gilkes.

I think Belle Vue are out whatever happens due to their negative points difference. If Sheffield and Leicester each win their home legs and Leicester take the aggregate point, all 3 teams finish on 5 points but one of those 2 will end up with a positive points difference, so it's impossible for Belle Vue to finish top.

The irony of this being that Belle Vue did get the graveyard gate early doors but were only 6 points down. The damage was done in heats 7-11 when Sheffield had gate 3 for 4 consecutive races.

So it's exactly the same then. Tac subs allowed in the league phase, but not in the knockout phase.

Are tactical substitutes allowed in the playoffs ?

You missed all the excitement leaving that early. All the Aces fans suddenly woke up and chanted "Bewley, Bewley, Bewley" when you finally got a heat advantage in heat 12. Pity the match was already over by then. 😉