lupus

Nice to see the 'beethens' thing is catching on - even with the very people it's meant to annoy - Good!!! Now if we can just get the phrase 'spoons' back full time, we can have some fun!!! :twisted:

Oh GOD!!! :roll:

Well MY first meeting was when I was 3 weeks and 2 days old!!! My daughter beat that by being 2 weeks and 5 days old!!! My first meeting would have been Swindon V ??? on the (?)28th August 1965 - any friendly 'anorak' types out there like to help me fill in the details? My daughter's first meeting was the Olympique at wolverhmpton (October 2000!) My husband was the 'late-starter' in our family...he didn't go until he wa about three months old - one of the problems of being a February baby!!! We're a bit of a scary speedway-obsessed family to be honest...my daughter is actually a fourth generation speedway fan on BOTH sides!!! My husband's grandad was the first to go on his side and my maternal grandparents attended the first meeting at Swindon in 1948. Also MY parents met at the speedway in the late 1950's and my hubby and I met at the speedway in 1985!!! There's very little hope of my daughter NOT being a speedway fan, is there?!!!

It's obvious you've never stood on the grassy knoll at Belle Vue, the third bend at Oxford, or even the back straight at Peterboro on occasions , how the hell are you supposed to know what the score is, who's in the next race etc if the loud speakers are so cr*p that you can either hear nothing, or the guy sounds like he's trying to gargle at the same time as announce?! Speedway is different from football as even the average football fan can manage to cope with 2-1 or 3-0 but try getting them to remember 26-16 or 38-22 and that's WITHOUT golden doubles etc!!! I don't give a monkey's if people think it's 'sad' to fill in a programme - personally I get a bit peed off with people who DON'T buy a programme and then keep asking people who have what the score is!!!!! :twisted:

Well you'd have thought so, wouldn't you. What's the point in being the Lord of Darkness if he couldn't help the British guy - hang on a minute though, CVS is Dutch so perhaps it's Pijper who should get some special treatment?!

Well he WAS at Worky, Rabbit, and scored 12 from 4! However, I couldn't agree more about how ridiculous it was for him to have to drive to Workington and back prior to the biggest meeting of his career so far! Surely it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for the BSPA to have offered special dispensation for a guest. After all, if the meeting today had been in any other country, he wouldn't have been ABLE to get back, would he?!!! :roll: :twisted: Anyway Good Luck Steady - and PK of course!!!

Can I just change your post to read 'Most Promoters from EL or PL .....' ? :twisted:

Trouble is, with one or two exceptions, this forum seems to subscribe to the 'British' disease - ie 'we didn't win, but hey, we tried hard!!!' No-one is arguing that GB did better in the qualifiers than was expected but when the going got tough - well we might as well have packed our bikes away after about heat 5!!! Personally, I have always found this 'bulldog spirit' stuff a bit sad. Roughly translated it means 'we invented the sport and then these whippersnappers come along and have the audacity to be better than us - but never mind becasue we're British and we're hanging in there!!!' I want the British team to have the same attitude as the Aussies, the Danes - and on last nights performance - the Swedes. The Aussies were very sporting on the rostrum but you could tell by their faces that they were completely gutted. Meanwhile the Brits were there in the pits with their 'we did our best, and we're proud of our acheivement' faces on!!! Call me a moaner if you like but I'm sick of Britain's it's ok to be second best attitude - it's about time we were FIRST in something!!! :twisted: :roll:

Firstly, If you knew ANYTHING about me, you'd know that under no circumstances could you refer to him as my 'beloved' CVS. :? :twisted: However, I do agree that the EL promoters have only themselves to blame for the problems in the EL. As I said before though, it's no good ANYONE sticking their heads in the sand and pretending everything in the garden is rosy! I realise that the PL promoters are unlikely to stick their necks out after what happened in the mid-90's but by the same token, the PL needs the EL and vice versa. I'm sure there may be some riders who would be reluctant to ride at Workington, but how do we KNOW if there's a problem unless we test the waters so to speak. Finally, I'm not suggestiing these changes for my OWN benefit but to help the sport AS A WHOLE florish and grow. I'll leave the self-interests stuff to certain promoters and fans who can only see things very close up!!! :twisted: ;-) No, I do not think anyone should be 'forced' to join any league - I would hope that by evening out the teams to lower the costs for anyone moving to the EL, and therfore helping to improve the profile of speedway as whole, would be enough insentive for any promoter who has the interests of the sport as a whole in mind.

YEAAAAH Go Sweden!!! As soon as it was obvious that the Brits were not going to be up to the job, I started to cheer on the Swedes - Wolves connections and all that! I even said at about heat 10 or 11 'wouldn't it be AMAZING' if the Swedes did this withouth Rickardsson' - never dreaming that they actually WOULD!!! Mikael's 'joker' ride was awesome and Peter Ljung winning heat 24 had the gathered throng at our house jumping up and down. Being the born pessimist I am, I thought Crump would win the last one and PK would blow it and finish last - but no, Mr Crump's legendary 'bottle' disappeared into the distance and PK only had to ride round for four laps to win it !!! Although the trap WAS awful, I thought the fact that it went down to the last race made it very exciting to watch!!! Once again - WELL DONE SWEDEN!!! Or should that be - Mycket bra och gratulerar!!!

That next ride was even more amazing - he was trying to team ride the Russian AND the Hungarian to make sure Ruud didn't beat them!!! Love him or hate him, you can't deny Gollob is a very intelligent guy!!! 8)

Nigel Pearson reckons it's pronounced 'Simeon' - I DON'T THINK SO!!! I've heard on the grapevine that Colin Pratt's been talking to him...do you think he'd partner Billy Janirro?! :twisted: :roll:

And I don't know if anyone's ever heard Wayne Carter interviewed?! He uses the 'you know' thing even more than the Danes did last night!!! Mind you, coming from Halifax, English probably isn't his first language either!!! :twisted:

Couple of small points: 1) Don't hold your breath - CVS is virtually computer illiterate so the chances of him repliying to an e-mail are slightly less than zero!!! 2) The e-mail address for CVS doesn't go to him anyway but to 'pooper-scoop' Pearson - his faithful lap-dog - so it's doubtful he'll even get to SEE the damn thing. Especially as Nigey-babes is currently on his honeymoon!!! In my opinion your best chance of getting a reply from CVS is to write to him using 'snail-mail'!!! ;-)

The previous post was from me - I have no idea why my log in didn't register but I didn't want anyone to think it was from some spy in the BSPA or whatever!!! :roll:

Right, and if he wasn't good looking, would you STILL regularly talk to him and make a big deal about being his 'friend'? I've been going to speedway for well over 35 years and WAS a 'speedway girlie' in my younger days - it just amuses me that young girls seem to consider riders their 'friends' when they're actually lucky if the rider even knows their name, let alone consider them as friends. :roll: :twisted:

Actually I used to be a big fan of Nicki's - even sticking up for him when many others were on his back after the incident with Wayne Carter in the pits at Coventry. Having spoke to Nicki on a number of occasions I have found him pleasant, intelligent and fairly easy-going. However, something seems to happen to him when he gets on his bike - and it's THIS that I don't like!!! I used to think it was the overexhuberance of youth, but as he's got more experienced, his 'get out of the way, I'm Nicki Pedersen' attitude seems to have grown. I think other people are right, he's going to pick on the wrong one some day and find himself flat on his back in the pits ala Stephan Andersson!!! I still maintain that there is no excuse for NOT checking how an opponent is - that is just bad manners. If he's so worried about Gollob's temper - my advice would be - don't get tangled up with him in the first place!!! :roll: As Midnight Lady pointed out there is a difference between loyalty to a rider (nothing to do with his good looks by any chance? :evil: ) and trying to defend the indefensible!!! :twisted: :!:

I DID notice that Nicki just went back the pits after a quick glance at the prone Gollob - how damn sporting is that? :x Sam DOES know what he's talking about - he was put out of the GP's in the GP challenge a couple of years ago by Pedersen's "Hard but fair" riding - fair my backside!!! :roll: :twisted:

Best wishes to Lukas - Get Well Soon!!! Kevin - With regards to the three weeks out thing - I would have thought, considering he was knocked out for quite a while, that at the very least Lukas will have some concussion - not as 'simple' an injury as some people think, it is , after all, bruising to the brain. That in itself would keep him out for a couple of weeks if he's sensible!

Firstly, can I say that I'm so glad that Lukas is relatively ok after one of the worst crashes I've ever seen!!! But now onto my moan!!! How many times have we had threads on here saying how 'all clubs should have air fences'? I have always questioned this and have often been ignored or shot down in flames for suggesting they were actually dangerous in certain circumstances! I have said time and time again that I can see the reasoning behind airfences on the bends - where usually the bike has lost some momentum before it actually hits the fence - but on the straights, air fences just ADD to the problems. The incident with Lukas is just the latest in a string of crashes caused soley by the damn air fence dragging a rider in and catapulting him down the track after the bike stops dead!!! It is a good idea to use something to INCREASE rider safety, but to introduce something that CAUSES accidents is nothing short of criminal!!! The problem is that riders have grown up on tracks where either the fence itself or the kick board causes you to bounce off and carry on your way. If we are to continue to have passing and close racing, the riders have to feel that they can do this in safety. Having the damn air fence on the straight, and witnessing crashes like last night, will surely cause riders to think twice about trying an outside line. Sam said, after his crash TWO YEARS ago that something should be done about the air fence on the straights - but here we are two years later and another rider could have been very seriously injured - AT LEAST - becuase of exactly the same situation! This needs sorting out NOW - before we're all sitting here lamenting the death of another of our 'family'!!! :x :x :x

Hear, Hear Chris!!! :evil:

Whilst I have sympathy with those people who CAN'T have SKY for the reasons mentioned - but those who chose cable over SKY (probably becasue it was slightly cheaper ) really can't complain if they then miss some meetings. We were in this position a couple of years ago, but decided to go with SKY as there package suited the things we wanted better (mostly speedway and American Football). With regards to SKY not helping the local tracks - I can only speak for the people I know but over the last two or three years htere have been so many additions to the people we stand with that if you don't get there early you have to find another 'spot'. Last Monday there were 4 adults and one child of 10 stood by us - work colleagues of my other half mostly - whose sole reason for being there was because they saw the sport on TV. One of these guys used to take the mickey out of my other half saying that he couldn't believe he still went to the speedway as this other guy used to go in the 70's, until he 'outgrew' the sport (turning, like most, to football :roll: ). However, after seeing the speedway on SKY at the beginning of last year, his daughter nagged him to take her to Wolves - and now they're well and truly hooked!!! Just an example of the 'power' of TV - like it or not, the most effective way of getting people back to the sport is for it to have as much exposure as possible. After all, the guy I described above has worked with my hubby for about ten years and resisted every effort my hubby made to persuade him to try it again - until he saw the sport again for himself - ON SKY!!!!!!!!

Whoa there mate...can you explain this one to me?! :? Firstly, can we not talk about 'Wolves' and 'Eastbourne' - the promoters are the ones who make decisions NOT the Clubs!!! Secondly, If you are talking about the last time the leagues amalgamated (1995/96) then you are WRONG that Wolves 'screwed the pl over' - CVS was one of the 'top' league promoters who was willing to go with the idea of onew 8.5 plus guy per team and a limit of 40 (or was it 38?) points for each team. this proposal was veto'd by Cloin Pratt (Cradley) and Alan Ham (Bradford who didn't want to 'choose' between their top two... :x :roll: If you're NOT referring to this, then can you explain what you mean by 'screwed over the pl'?! :?:

You're not alone Pirate, I obviously didn't deserve a mention off BTL either. And I'm fairly sure he even got a drink off me in the POW as well ! I'd have thought that was reason enough for a Scotsman not to forget me He'd obviously been bought plenty of drinks - he met ME in the POW too - and I'm not exactly easy to miss!!!!!!!!

Phew - I'm glad to hear that other people thought this years meeting wasn't quite the same as previous years - I was worried it was just me!!! The atmosphere was DEFINATLEY lacking something - whether it was the poor use of music, the so-called band, the absence of Mark Loram or all of the above...it just wasn't the same for me this year. The last two years I have found really pumped up the adrenaline but not last night. The track was pretty awful - but to be honest it's not been great for the last two either, but in the previous two meetings the atmosphere helped you to ignore that and enjoy the day!!! :?