RobMcCaffery

Charles has gone from being totally shielded from heat leaders to facing them in every race, sometimes three of them at a time. Is he on proper pay rates now or still on the FTR pittance?

Typical, blame it on the triffids....

Okay, we've finally broken him. Our work here is done

I think the asylum's tightened up its security.

Skidder1 appears to be very important - but thankfully only in Poole

I've already argued elsewhere that the moment it was decided that FTR riders could move into the main team the protected heat format had to go since averages are totally meaningless while meetings are staged using it. FTR riders are achieving similar averages to many heat leaders simply by winning the two reserve races and taking a few points off second strings and fellow FTRs. According to one of the Poole mouthpieces the riders aren't concerned. I don't think that situation will last for long. So, tonight Charles Wright scored 1 point from number 3 for Swindon while Rohan Tungate scored 9 from reserve. Was Wright still on FTR fixed money? Was Tungate suddenly confronted with FTR pay rates? It's ludicrous, but what is sad is that it is no surprise that this sad situation has been allowed to happen. Does nobody in the BSPA think these things through? Either way, I'm pretty sure we will have the sad inevitability of a Poole star rider in the reserve berth in the Grand Final. He might even wear his goggles ;-) Thank goodness we have two other leagues - imperfect but at least not ga-ga.

Yes, but not necessarily by enough to pay for them.

And Poole fans think people can't stand them just because their team wins? Slagging off the rest of the EL isn't good enough so you have to start on the other two leagues? Thank goodness there is an EL - it keeps you people from polluting those two levels as well.

What a wonderful night's speedway that was for the paying public! Poole got what they wanted so that makes it okay though. Pathetic piece of arrogance.

So, a ludicrous event ends in farce. Quite fitting really.

They'd be banned for life in Britain!

I can't speak for ITV, having had no involvement in that area, unlike the BBC. At Nations and Regions level in the latter I found that an appreciation of the sport differed widely regionally and often was down to the personal views of the relevant heads of sport. I once had a discussion with the head of sport at Nations and Regions, the guy in overall charge of sport on the regional TV shows and local radio. He was very open to speedway being covered, a refreshing contrast to the attitide at national level. Clearly with Poole's success BBC South and BBC Radio Solent are keen to include reports while my own local BBC region, West will give coverage if Swindon or Somerset are in an important meeting. With no BBC footage of actual meetings obviously they have to obtain access rights to footage from Sky. BBC Wiltshire has a strong involvement at Swindon while I believe the same is the case at Poole. Then there is the superb coverage by BBC WM. Equally I'm sure there are many here who will tell you that their region or local radio give no coverage at all. In my past life in the London area the coverage was pitiful, apart from a brief spell in the 70s when Norman de Mesquita was in charge of BBC Radio London sport. I fail to see the point in your posting though. Obviously coverage will be given if the relevant sports editor believes it to be in the interest of his viewers. What other criterion would apply? Is there something we should know?

Odd how so few are actually defending it. Oh, and after 45 years of involvement in the sport as a supporter, official and broadcaster I don't need to justify the label 'fan'. It is an indefensible situation. I can only guess that your lack of concern must be due to it favouring Poole in some way. If there is a lack of concern in the 'official;' world that you obviously believe to inhabit then that is no surprise. If they're stupid enough to let the situation happen they're hardly likely to be able to see the result! Time will tell, especially after we see FTRs hopelessly out of their depth in all heat-leader races. Oh, I forget, Poole rigged the FTR system so they got two riders who will be able to cope with this ridiculous situation. Complacency rules on the south coast, but then you're alright, sod the rest of the sport eh? You'll be running out of opponents soon enough given the state of the EL.

Have we got a date for this year's annual 'Farewell' meeting yet?

'Mostly'? There's plenty who aren't on final salary pension schemes who have only the pitiful state pension to live on. There's a lot of people on here who really should stick to speedway rather than just spout what they read in their daily rag or hear down the pub.

In my day, which was a very long time ago now, there was a system of 'news access' that gave other broadcasters the right to show short clips of sports action. No doubt today that has to be paid for.

As many contributors have said (perhaps you should try reading them), it's the not the moving up, into the team that's the problem, it's the retention of the protected heats meeting format that's the problem since it will give the FTRs false averages and then trap some of them (for only a while thankfully) in a heat-leader role where the easiest rides they will get will be against second strings, several of whom will be heat leaders on equally false averages, and face often two opposing heat leaders in a race. The whole point of the protected heats format was to protect - to prevent FTRs from facing heat leaders. You cannot have vital team positions determined by totally false averages. The protected heat formula should have been dropped the moment it was decided to let FTRs rise out of the reserve berths. It is emphatically NOT about riders being given the chance to progress - it's about doing it in a sane and fair way, not that sane and fair exist in your part of the world.

The whole point of the revised EL heat meeting formula was to protect FTR riders from facing heat leaders. Now, because of their 'protected rides' some have a false average high enough to move into the team and face heat leaders in every race! When the decision was made to allow FTRs to rise into the team the 'protected heats' format should have been immediately dropped. Does anyone in the BSPA hierarchy have the ability to think anything through logically? What a mess!

EL averages are now totally worthless since they rely far too much on a rider's place in the team rather than his abilities.

Very, very true. It was by far the best aspect of announcing, studying the referees and getting a superb view of what was going on together with an understanding of what was going on that you just can't get from the terraces. Re centre greens. These could be hazardous, especially if you were dealing with a dog track - several surprise 'presents' could catch the unwary out. One track also had a mini swamp that had to be avoided or you ended up with a rather abrupt end to the mic work. Speedway's always had boring races, and for that matter boring tracks that relied more on speed than passing to impress, but to me the balance has shifted. While you will still get examples that people will use to try to convince others that nothing's worsened the outside pass has declined over the years. The thrill of watching a rider take a handful of throttle and be rewarded with a thrilling overtake was a fundamental aspect of the sport. I watched, from about the mid eighties onward, riders going for the outside line just to find themselves falling further back as the tracks just no longer would reward their bravery. When I started in the seventies I quickly realised that the only way you could get good racing was the distribution of dirt on the track, with a bias to the outside vital to make the longer outside line fast enough to make it an option to pass and give more than one racing line on the track. Now, far too often it's just a procession. We had these in the past -0, I believe there's just too many now. Time after time I saw racers go out in a vain search for dirt only to be disappointed. The racing suffered and the crowds started to disappear. There's plenty of video evidence out there - it's not just 'misty-eyed nostalgia' or people longing for the days of their youth. I don't mind people fooling themselves that nothing's changed, just please don't try to fool me. The old Hackney Hawks thrived for two decades on quality of racing rather than results. Now at far too many tracks it's only about the team winning, not having an entertaining night's racing. When the wins run out, so do the fans....

You need to click on a very small white x on red to clear it. It can be something of a chase to do it, I'm afraid. It's a small price to pay. Going full screen also clears it. It's the middle symbol bottom right between the clock and volume controls.

Being re-staged tomorrow.

There is a difference between what can or should should happen and what WILL happen. Of course you could show all 15 heats in an hour. Sadly Eurosport's past record shows that they aren't prepared to do this. If you want a justification I suggest you contact them! I've made enough speedway TV and video programmes in the past to know what can be done in one hour - and to know that logic and TV producers aren't always in the same room.

At least I wake up. You should try it.

I can understand to a point but last season was unusual in that the first two meetings were postponed. The Swedish determination to get meetings on when most tracks in Britain would have long given up is marked and to be respected but it does play havoc with the TV companies who I am sure would prefer to just put a substitute programme on than carry an hour of updates on track repairs. It's great for the fans that meetings are saved but understandably bad for TV. I think Eurosport have been premature though. Their chaotic scheduling was just about acceptable in the early days of satellite TV in the late 80s and early 90s but not now. If they can't make use of the live feed they really should surrender the rights to someone who will. Here we had Premier Sports doing fine with a far more basic international feed until Eurosport came in to take over the contract, since when the UK coverage has been all over the place. Of course the benefit is that Swedish racing was shown in many other countries other than the majors. I'm sorry, but given their past record that is probably unlikely. It would be excellent though f they did so let's hope.