False dawn

My feeling is that, despite the engines being tuned etc., the 250s are much more evenly matched. This naturaly leads to more closely fought races and puts more emphasis on rider skills. This is just a theory of course, but it seems to fit the facts. And this post, that appeared whilst I was composing mine, seems to be in the same vane. An interesting side note. Someone prominent in the speedway world said in my hearing recently that the worse thing speedway ever did was to announce race times. Hmmm, makes you think.

The son of a Bee. Never in doubt.

If we get the this quality of racing tomorrow we're in for a treat. These kids never give up.

Someone did say there is rumour that the British Final is to be restaged on that date.

Well done to Ace Pijper and Luke Harrison on their qualification for the SGP3 Final Pity Max James just missed out.

How big is your lawn? We'll hold the meeting there. A few tinnies in the fridge and we're cooking on gas.

That means that it would have made sense to offer Greg Hancock and Hans Nielsen the meeting reserve slots at Cardiff

Plymouth used all theirs to dry out a certain rider

If people want foreigners who ride for British Clubs to be eligible to ride, we will have to rename the meeting as The British Open Championship. Or perhaps we should just call it the Premier League Riders Championship The British Final is to find the national champion i.e. British

The wizard of balance

Yes, I've heard that before. Odd though, since leg trailing also preceded the JAP era.

Unlike some who can't help themselves when there is a comment about the lack of shale at Poole, eh? Fishing lesson: You need to use the right bait

One aspect of racing styles that I guess I took for granted back in the day (70's) was a rider putting weight on the right footrest. Thinking about it, riding styles started from there and varied from there up, so-to-speak. Then someone came along and showed it was not necessary to put any pressure on the footrest. The one that springs to mind is Bobby Ott. I'm sure he wasn't the first, but the first time I saw him corner with his right leg pointing horizontal, his knee on the saddle and his foot miles off the peg, I just stood there with my mouth open wondering how the hell he could do that. In the modern era, riders seem to rest their right foot on the peg without applying any great pressure. Indeed you'll see riders flick their leg to right when trying to regain their balance. And then there is the left leg forward, "supporting" the bike aspect of all this. - Discuss A simplistic analysis, as I'm sure some will tell me. Just a personal observation.

Shale? I thought this was at Poole?

See, I was right. Just got the wrong competition. I'll get my coat

I'm not saying anything. (see GP Challenge thread)

It's a bit of a coincidence that you should say that. One of the staff told me on Saturday that the council won't allow car racing of any kind at Beaumont Leys. Odd really, as you'd need binoculars and a very tall set of step ladders to see the nearest house.

The crowd wasn't bad for an NDL meeting (the 50-50 was £265) and I saw fans from several "away" tracks. Not sure what was happening early doors. Apart from the twins, hardly anyone seem to be confident to attack the corners. The track wasn't doctored and later on there were several riders posting good times and racing hard. Elliot Kelly certainly gave the twins something to think about in the final.

My apologies. Old age must be kicking in because I thought I remembered a long discussion on here a few years back where we all agreed how unfair it was that the 4th place didn't qualify automatically if one of the top 3 qualified some other way.

Sadly, no. The vacant spot becomes an additional FIM nomination.

Mildenhall

You're probably right. And I'll be supporting the twins since they started their track appearances at Brandon. But your comments are similar to many who don't support the NDL at all. And the criticism is often unfair. Many riders in this league give 100% every time they appear and the quality of racing is generally very good. Oh, I know that I will get a lot of stick. "We only get overtaking because of amateur mistakes". Well that's not completely wrong but it is not fair to many NDL riders who are truly entertaining. The winners only win the final. There are 14 (?) other races. So I will be there and I'm expecting it to be good value for money.

Forget the soup, those root vegetables make a very passable whisky type wine (assuming you keep it long enough, which I haven't, generally ) Hey, this is better than talking about averages or Poole, for that matter

I went to Odsal for league meetings and a World Final. And I went to the old Wembley more times than I remember, including the 1981 World Final. There were some great meetings in amoungst all of that. But Cardiff is different. I love the NSS, but I wouldn't go to Manchester for the weekend. Or London, for that matter, if the GP was there. Here's a novel thought. Is there no one out there that could improve the Cardiff track so that the racing is up to scatch? A change of material, a bit more banking, a change of shape (there is scope for this, I was looking on Saturday).