HenryW

Yes, they are...although the "old" stadium has been changed a lot.

I wouldn't...Sam is quality but for me Cookie is the best we have had at the Dale and I'd love to have him back again

The accident you mentioned can be seen here. https://www.instagram.com/p/BNzhykUj0L7/ Unfortunately Joonas broke his leg in this crash. I hope he makes a speedy recovery.

It works so well in Poland that the team that won the Promotion play off wasn't allowed to go up and the team that they beat chose not to go up, leaving the 3rd place team as the one that accepted the promotion...I can see Britain reproducing that level of success

Good to see a couple of the speedway boys having a go at this again this year.

Given they are using essentially old PL averages I was assuming new riders would come in the same to either league, using the lower league rules. As I'm sure you know, 4 point (previously 5) averages were only for riders who hadn't raced in the league in Sweden, Poland or Denmark. Anyone who raced in those leagues was given at least a 7.

Yes, Jye has an ancestry visa which doesn't require an employer sponsorship.

Any chance you could post the full list of heat 15 averages from this season? I'd definitely be interested to see those.

I think he has signed for Tarnow in Poland who are not in the Extraliga.

Yeah, the third race off in 2010. Korneliussen, Jaros, Klindt, Kennett, Legault, Fisher, Woelbert, Nieminen, Smolinski and Ferjan didn't make it to the meeting. The meeting ended up with only 15 riders. 10 Russian, 3 Polish, 1 Latvian and 1 Ukrainian.

The Final was terrific. The race off was one of the dullest meetings I have been to in recent years.

Daugavpils race in the lower league in Poland and they have to use Latvian riders rather than Polish. Of course, they also aren't allowed to race in the Extraliga. They have won the lower league the last 2 years but aren't allowed to take the promotion place...

Yeah, I'm kinda confused by this as well. I think a lot of people are assuming that his average came from reserve in the EL but he actually mainly raced 2nd string, even had a spell at heat leader if I'm remembering right.

And yet the 3 sports leagues with the highest income in the World seem to manage just fine without it!

What if the bottom Premiership side wants to drop down? Who gets the Premiership place after two 0-0 draws with 120 engine failures and falls The PL had been running 2 leg matches without double points for the last couple of seasons. Has it been said whether the new KO Cups and play offs will allow them?

Thanks, I must have missed that tweet. That must be a bit of a disappointment to OneSport and their ambitions.

I wonder if Emil will try to qualify and still do the SEC or if he will concentrate on SGP now. I am assuming that the rules are still the same and he can't get a wildcard for this as he is in the GP again.

I'm not really sure that this is a valid argument when it comes to Vaculik. He finished 8th in his semi final so if there were no wildcard entries he would have been in the final anyway. Lindgren is slightly different as he finished lower but in a meeting that was shortened due to rain. I've not actually studied who had met who at the time of the call off but there always some that get easier rides and some tougher in those circumstances...maybe it was even Smoli himself who got the easier races. Being the lowest scoring qualifier it wouldn't have taken much to have knocked him out in the last 2 rounds of races if they had happened.

Tai doesn't have to be World Champ if Greg was deemed not to be eligible to receive the title. No-one was promoted to 2nd in 1990 when they deemed Shawn Moran wasn't eligible to race in the Final after a prior drug test failure.

I see Nicki has given his thoughts on the situation: http://ekstrabladet.dk/sport/anden_sport/motorsport/speedway/forarget-nicki-efter-grotesk-vm-farce-det-skal-have-konsekvenser/6364228

Just as a fun aside, I think the rule being discussed is actually in the rulebook thanks to PePe Protasiewicz. He qualified as first reserve in 2010 and after doing a couple of rounds in the middle of the season decided that he couldn't be bothered with other meetings, leaving Davey Watt to race those..until the series made its way to Bydgoszcz for the final round which PePe decided he fancied racing in. There was a bit of an outcry that he could pick and choose rounds like this and the debated rule was added for the following season.

I thought I'd add in my rankings to this thread. These are only up to last weekend and don't include National Championships yet which the OPs do and also include a few more leagues than his but they shouldn't make too much difference as few if any of the top guys race in the extra leagues I have included. The actual rating value is supposed to be able to be used to directly compare riders in a head to head. If 2 riders have the same value they have a 50/50 chance of winning against each other so, as you can see, the top 4 are very close. Much closer than in previous years I have tried this rating system. 1 Greg Hancock 25,094.69 2 Bartosz Zmarzlik 25,002.43 3 Jason Doyle 24,555.35 4 Tai Woffinden 24,099.30 5 Patryk Dudek 20,002.91 6 Chris Holder 17,253.11 7 Niels K Iversen 16,757.95 8 Grigoriy Laguta 16,289.12 9 Krzysztof Kasprzak 15,373.96 10 Nicki Pedersen 15,122.61 11 Antonio Lindbäck 14,765.13 12 Martin Vaculik 13,888.86 13 Emil Sajfutdinov 13,219.45 14 Janusz Kolodziej 13,212.64 15 Przemek Pawlicki 12,897.99 16 Piotr Pawlicki 12,541.47 17 Piotr Protasiewicz 12,459.32 18 Vaclav Milik 12,440.65 19 Fredrik Lindgren 11,940.69 20 Leon Madsen 11,627.19

Personally I'm more disappointed in his decision to walk out the meeting. Riders have been excluded many times over the years for things that they don't agree with, but walking out and stiffing the fans that have paid good money to see him is pretty despicable. Riders get bans for refusing to start in GP and SWC events. Will a similar punishment come for someone leaving the event early?

It does look fairly clear cut now. The only question mark might be against giving a place to a fourth Pole but there aren't many better candidates, to be fair. On form this year Laguta is probably the only other outsider that might have a genuine claim that I can think of. However, it's hard to imagine them going with 2 Russians, neither of whom did the qualifying rounds.

Austria last competed in 2004, finishing last in the qualifying round in Gyula. France last competed in 2013, finishing last in the qualifying round in Miskolc. Since 2013 there has only been 1 qualifying round rather than 2.