Ben91

If we can win the meeting I'll be happy. Hopefully make it down for this to see how the developments to the stadium have gone and to have a look at Busk-Jakobsen on his first appearance.

Well he's not going to be any worse than Dilger is he.

There seems to be a lot of expectation on Zach at Birmingham, he'll have to live up to it or the Brummies will have a long tail. Surprised to see not many people fancy Stoke. Two strong heatleaders, experienced reserves and one of the best engine rooms in the division on paper.

If Scott wants to put his hand in his pocket and bring back Linus and Tai next year I'd happily see us in the EL. It's not that exciting a proposition on the whole though, PL has more variety.

Well it should be expected and hoped for by all clubs. What's the point if you aren't building your team to win the league and every meeting they race in?

It's simple logic, if you win the league but are over stretching your financial capabilities then you shouldn't be putting an expensive team together in the first place, remuneration or none. And then you deserve to go out of business tbh. Glasgow have deep pockets this year and they're building a team they can afford. Edinburgh however announced they made a loss after winning the title, some could say that's because they were living beyond their means, same as Newport after they pulled out all the stops to win the ko cup.

Teams shouldn't be living beyond their means then. I wouldn't feel sorry for someone who buys a car they can't afford on finance then can't keep up the repayments from day one, would you? Same principle applies here IMO.

I thought Mullins was confirmed and the other two were going to go head to head/be assessed for the number 7 spot with the other being named as number 8.

Will make the Kings stronger no doubt. Sanderson has a year of NL racing behind him, would be my choice. Still think the Kings will regret letting Harris go last year, the lad will be one to watch this season.

I'd say there's more pressure on Morley as he'll be the one carrying Konopka probably!

Hope Morley has a great season at Redcar, been knocking on the door without much luck at a PL team spot for the last couple of seasons. Just to be pedantic though he was a full time Rocket a few years ago so to say he has no PL experience isn't strictly true.

How did you know? Helps me get a decent parking space at meetings and I'm not alone in having stupid haircut being a speedway fan

Of course he will, Eastbourne aren't going to win the league.

Finding out which PL club Jason Garrity will sign for. Josh Bates not retaining his Under-21 title. Rye House's interest in the season finishing in around August. Oh the joys.

In all seriousness though, Cradley, Stoke and Kent are my top three picks.

Eastbourne are going to win the league and all their riders will average more than 9.

Hughes' best season in the sport came in a Rockets race jacket. At the end of that season he had a horrible head injury and it all went downhill from there. Let's hope that back at Rye he can rediscover the potential he showed in attaining a near five point Premier League average in 2010. Incidentally he averaged higher than Nick Morris, Dakota North, Adam Roynon, Alex Davies and our own Anders Mellgren to name just a few that season. There's a decent rider in there somewhere and at 25 he's not too old to show that again.

I think I'm right in saying the floodlights are being moved onto the greyhound track in some areas to light the track better due to the air fence. If so that rules dogs out. Other than bangers I can't think of much else that could be done with the stadium without major work being carried out.

As I said, there are some riders who come from grasstrack who do well, some who don't. Your first list is one of riders who have done well at speedway after beginning on the grass but for that list, which stretches a long way back, there are countless more grasstrackers who have made the step across and been rubbish on the shale. The second list is riders in the NL who have ridden grasstrack too, of those maybe 2/3 will end up riding to Elite League standard. The rest won't which in fact supports my point and not yours.

Never judge a rider on a few videos. If another club had wanted him sooner and offered him a contract he would have taken it I'm sure. Both may turn out to be fantastic signings but it's better to have realistic expectations and be pleasantly surprised than to have high hopes and be disappointed.

Lot of expectation being placed on Wood and Wilson-Dean here. For all the riders who have made the cross over from grasstrack to speedway easily there have been more that have fallen by the wayside. It'd be naive for people to think Wood is going to take to speedway like a duck to water. If Wilson-Dean was as good as is being made out then a PL side would have snapped him up as a 3 point reserve. Don't ramp up the expectation levels Eagles fans, there's only one way things can end then. I'd be very surprised if anyone other then Owen ended the year in the number one race jacket.

A fair few teams have got riders with averages between three-four in their main bodies this season. There's no problem with putting more than two three pointers in, it's not about knocking their confidence because there's only two reserve spots, it's about giving them a full season of competitive speedway. That's better than no team slot at all and another year of a NL which wasn't helping to blood British youth. Once the first set of averages come out the better riders will move out of reserve berths and the worse ones will drop down as always.

While I was hoping the Raiders would line up with a team of raw talent, the signings of Priest and Chessell is a good start. It looks as if we are going with a team that will be competitive rather than just blooding youngsters so it looks like we will need to bring in a number one who is either unattached or racing as a Premier League reserve. Robert Branford, previously mentioned here, would leave room to sign Brendan Johnson and complete the side with three three-point riders. A top four of Branford, Priest, Johnson and Chessell would certainly be competitive in the 2015 National League. Rob Watts, Danyon Hume and Macauley Leek look like possibilities to fill the remaining three spots in the 1-7.

No, no. International football is not the same as a speedway rider racing for two different teams in one country. Agree with the rest of your post though

The EL should always get priority unless the rider is owned by his PL team. What other sport would give their second tier priority? Then again what other sport lets participants play for more than one team in professional competiton? The asset system is ridiculous and needs scrapping, priority should be sorted via level of competition. That said, if the EL had a set race night that no clubs in lower tiers were allowed to race on then there would be no clashes whatsoever.