False dawn

Badger's rear end!

Just remind us R&R where we can watch this and the time please. Ta muchly.

Don't worry. They've only done it so the casual observer can immediately understand what's going on.

Of course we don't know what's really going to happen. But well done to everyone for planning for the best, rather than assuming the worst. Keep the faith people. We'll have a beer in Cardiff, I'll be going to Brandon every Saturday and Oxford will reopen.

I think I could sign up to a 4 final formula. Top 4 from the 20 heats to the A final, the next 4 to the B final and so on. Then award WC points as per this year's system. This would satisfy both arguments. Every race would count in that riders couldn't relax too much as the odd point could make a difference of 4 places or more. And the winner of the A final would always get the most points. Also, someone crawling into the latter stages couldn't still win the meeting. I think there's some real mileage in this.

I didn't have a stupid theory that he would ride, I had another sort of theory that he might, just might ride Edit: Mind you, quoting a website that says the next event is the SON final in 15 days in Manchester might undermine the veracity of any news that they carry. Just kidding my patient friend. I'll move to another thread and annoy you there, promise.

BTW, I like that picture of Tai on his Twitter account. [Looks like he's using his index finger to operate the clutch!]

As to Tai's record, without checking, is he referring to other British Championships other than the senior one? For example the British U21 Championship. Likewise, has he won another World Championship For that I am pleased, really. I acknowledge you are the "Go to" for all things international in the speedway world. At the risk of opening a can of worms, not everything is done for money.

I'm going to upset you R&R, which is not my intention.... Tai has not said clearly that he's not riding. "That's a wrap" could easily refer to his Polish league season. Tai has damaged (badly, I admit) his clutch hand. I'm sure I remember occasions in past, when riders have switched their clutch lever to the right and had both the clutch and throttle on the same side. Not ideal, but doable. So I haven't given up hope just yet.

Didn't I hear in commentary that he is retiring at the end of this year? Whether that is true or not, I agree that the Poles have to settle their differences. Having the clear world no.4 sitting at home during the Speedway of Nations is not only damaging Poland's chances, it deprives us from watching him.

You could argue that black is white and get killed on a zebra crossing. But I think we know who has the world at his feet right now.

Yeh, but apart from them, who else has made an impact as an unproven newcomer? [Paraphrasing from the Life of Brian ]

I guess this is a binary opinion. I would say exactly the same about last year's point system. But we're civilised folks, aren't we? We'll agree to disagree

Thanks R&R. Doesn't sound very likely that he will be riding, to say the least. Mind you, I still vivedly carry the memory of Kenny Carter being lifted onto his bike with his leg in the longest cast I've ever seen.

Has he said that? I know it has to be a real outside chance, especially as he has called an end to his Polish season. But he knows, as we do, that even an underpar Tai is better than no Tai at all.

Lovers of the new points system, think on. Had BZ slipped up on Saturday and just missed out on the semis, Tai or Freddie could well have gone on to be WC. However, BZ would still have been the top race points scorer and would still have had the highest race average, by far. Can you imagine the outcry there would have been, not least from the Poles, about such an outcome. The new points system would already, by now, be an historic experiment.

He won 1 race in 8 rounds. And ironically that wasn't when he made his one semi final.

Happiness is...

Funny you should say that. I was looking up some details on Oliver Berntzon. The SpeedwayGP website has his date of birth as 1970-01-02. I know he has been knocking on the door for a while but....

I believe he's riding on a Polish licence this year to allow him into the league as a reserve. Does his licence status determine which country he can ride for rather than how many passports he has?

I did my own ongoing analysis of the old vs new points system. However, such a comparison is not entirely valid. It has been pointed out several times that riders, particularly towards the top of the scoreschart, could afford to drop the odd point along the way and would therefore maybe settle for a second place rather than push hard for a win. It has even been suggested that riders could try out different settings with little or no risk to their semi final qualification. So, if the points system had been the same as last year, would riders scores have been the same? The argument that riders will push hard to get the best gate pick only returns me to the argument that it should be possible to make the gates more even. I listened carefully to Tai's interview last night and the stats don't really support his argument. The "best" gate can change radically at the same track from one meeting to another and suggests that the track surface/preparation is more critical than track geometry. To return to the points system, much of the debate, both on here and in commentry reinforces the idea that no one could predict with any certainty what the overall twists and turns of the scoring system might lead to last night. The top 6 qualification and the potential run offs for the top spots were hard to predict until quite late on. I know. I do fill in a programme and it's on my laptop and it not only keeps the ongoing scores up to date, it projects forward to the see what the likely meeting end scores will be. I sat in Torun last year with the same software on my tablet and I could tell with absolute certainty what each race score meant. I certainly didn't have to worry about whether a tape exclusion from a 3 rider race counted more than finishing 4th as we saw in an earlier round. A trivial example you might say, but the 6th qualifying spot did get quite tight. Imagine if it had come down to that at the end of the day? We really might have been debating the maths for some hours. And why did we change the scoring system? Because some "unnamed" folks disliked the fact that the winner of the final might not score the most points on the night. A spurious objection in my view and hey, it only happened once in 8 rounds this year.

Not sure if there would be too many toes involved. Elbows, front wheels, rear wheels, air fences and fists even, yes.

Nerd alert.... The top 5 are in the same order on this year's points system as they would have been on last year's system. The all important 6th place could be different however. Jason Doyle, Martin Vackulik, Emil and Artem Laguta are all in there. And even Leon Madsen in the current 5th place can't feel too comfortable.

Think the confusion came from them showing the positions in the final rather than the points scored