ABS

Would he have stayed in the UK following Wednesday's meeting? If he hasn't gone back to Slovenia, surely BV would have know a lot sooner than lunchtime today.

Count your blessings, we have to listen to his inane ramblings every week.

He looked very comfortable to me in the Bees vs Aces "A" meeting.

Was at Belle Vue on Friday and our track staff managed to to blade & grade the track and get the meeting on. An excellent meeting it was too. The attitude of the Leicester riders was spot on, with every one of them giving it a go. Reading what went on, that might be where the problem was with KL.

Brilliant meeting. Zagar is a different rider when the track is grippy, so good to watch. Leicester really deserved their point and M P-T was outstanding.

Good - that's all clear then!!! Who is at 6 for Leicester?

Jon Armstrong?

No Kennett for Lakeside - ear infection R/R to cover. On Lakeside web site, so must be true

A very good idea - keeps up the interest and the bar receipts.

Having started 30 mins late and with clouds gathering again, who made the decision to have and Interval an why? It might have made sense had they attempted to grade the track during the Interval, but no. All we got was some inane garbage fro the "Presenter". As you quite rightly point out, we were cheated of some three races, but hey ho, I guess that not having to pay the riders and increasing bar takings were perhaps motivating factors

Apparently, Wolves chose not to ride with Masters as they had Hansen flying in, at cost, from Denmark. Leicester have no other rider declared in place of Summers

With Wolves at BV on Wednesday, how comes Thorsell is guesting? Isn't there some seven-day rule for away teams?

Would have been so simple to remedy too - just a line saying that when reserves move up into the main body of the team they can only ride at numbers 2 & 4 meant ride/replace numbers 2 and 4

With Corbyn leading the Labour party and the Tories in meltdown over the EU, you might well be right.

Didn't you see Max flying around our new big track on Monday? Won't get as many points from R/R as Max would have scored.

Or even -12 with Stan James

Both BV and Poole websites have the Poole team in same order with Bjarne at 5. However, the BV site has Aces as unchanged, with Zagar at 1, whilst the Poole site has Cook at 1. Confused? I am.

Clegg riding at Belle Vue in Under 21's tonight

Thoroughly enjoyed the first meeting at the NSS. As one who saw PC's first meeting for Rochdale Hornets, all I can say is that Dan Bewley's Colts debut was every bit as impressive. Such control and such speed for one so young. Mildenhall were good value too, contributing to an excellent evening's entertainment. It will be interesting to see how the Aces and Robins handle the track one Wednesday. Can't see the Robins being put off by the track, it really is awesome.

F1 should patent itself as a cure for insomnia

R/R for Richie Worrall tonight

Who knows, we might have to?

Lindback would be a good option if he wants to ride here. Would like it to be Emil, but don't think there's much chance of that happening.

And the one word here which is key is choice. I'm not going to slag people off for not going to speedway nowadays, it's their choice. But the powers that be, the BSPA and individual promoters have to look why people are not choosing to spend their hard-earned at the gates. Do they honestly believe, for example, that the mickey-mouse, it's a knockout golden double rule attracts even one punter to the sport? Balance that against the number of supporters it hacks off, myself included and get rid fast. I was delighted to see AJ back in the E.L. this season. Wouldn't it have been great to have also seen Tai, Nikki P, Emil, etc, riding here? It's not as though they haven't done it before. Would clubs have generated enough interest to have made it a viable financial proposition - well I don't know, but was there any research done into this? I doubt it. Instead they'll take the simple way out, numbers are down can't afford to pay the top riders, therefore reduce the points limit, increase the gate price and hey presto, there you have it - problem solved. Except it isn't - all you're doing is building yourself a bigger problem downstream, which is where we find ourselves today. Go and find a Tier One sponsor - yeh and what exactly are you going to sell to them? If you have the cream of the crop racing here, you might just have a chance, but a mixture of Doubling up riders, Fast Track reserves, guests and rider replacement, not a prayer. So just carrying on reducing standards - it's the easy way out every time.

I go and watch Belle Vue every week that I'm in the country, but I can understand those who have either given up completely, or just pick & choose their meetings. What we have had in the E.L., is a yearly dilution of the quality of product on offer, coupled with an increase in price. Throw in an economic recession and you have a template for falling crowds. For me, it's a value for money issue and for 15-20 minutes of actual on-track action, speedway is pretty poor value. I do not begrudge the riders one penny of what they earn, but something has to be done to bring the operating costs down. A lot of money is shelled out by riders on tuners, who IMHO, don't not put much, if anything back in the sport. This money inevitably filters down to the Promoters and in turn to the punter. What is happening at the moment with new machinery and a new philosophy to that machinery should interest everybody, as potentially this could reduce riders outgoings. I would love to see the trend of reducing averages for team building reversed. Let's try and improve the standard and who knows, crowds may even increase. Speedway needs to be promoted properly. I'm 20 miles from Belle Vue and can assure you that in a town of around 250,000 people, not many have even heard of the sport, let alone Belle Vue. It's grand history within the sport is a total irrelevance on the street. I don't pretend to have the answers, but as the saying goes, one has to speculate to accumulate. It's about time the BSPA did some serious speculation, if the sport is to carry on as a professional sport.