Grachan

I wasn't there but saw it on World of Sport. I have never seen a replay of it, although I did see an advert for a DVD on 70s speedway and it showed about 2 seconds of it. Even that traumatised me!

Awwww. Martin Ashby. What a rider. I was totally obsessed with the guy as a teenager. I remember the first time I ever went to Swindon Speedway. Swindon v Wolves in 1974. I stood on the apex of the first and second bends. First race I saw - Martin Ashby of Swindon beating some foreign bloke called Ole Olsen and breaking the track record. Amazing. He had the best style of any rider. Take any picture of Martin Ashby riding, and you could put it into any other picture of him. He always looked exactly the same in every picture. So stylish, but possibly not aggressive or ruthless enough sometimes, which probably cost him a place in my first ever World Final in 1975. That race with Ray Wilson was over 50 years ago now, and I'm still traumatised by it! I even took my FS1-E to his garage once for a service - just so I could say my moped was serviced by Martin Ashby. After he retired, he was regular supporter at Blunsdon. Always in the same spot - near to the tea hatch going into the first bend - as though he were just another supporter. No heirs and graces at all. RIP Martin Ashby. What a guy!

I was at work having my lunch break yesterday so thought I'd read the Speedway GP website. One of my colleagues walked past and said: "Speedway? How very 1980's".

I seem to have vague recollection of them doing the voting thing a few years back. I can't remember how it worked exactly, but it was another of those "try it for this season and the scrap it" things.

Anyone else think Lambert should let Lebedevs win this heat?

I have no interest in buying a stream. I've no idea what is going on any more so why would I? When there were matches on TV, and I knew the teams, I might occasionally have enough interest to buy one - but even that has gone now. No speedway on TV has killed it off to me. It's hard for me to believe now that I was once obsessed with this sport.

I can only speak for myself, obviously, but Speedway is pretty much off my radar now apart from the Grand Prix - and my interest in that is nowhere near the level it once was. The two main reasons with me are pretty basic. 1 - I'm a Swindon fan. I don't have a team any more. This probably applies to fans of many of the once great sides like Coventry, Wolves, Reading, Cradley, Eastbourne, Hackney, Exeter, Arena-Essex blah blah blah. 2 - League racing is no longer on TNT/BT/Discovery or whatever you want to call it this week - so I have absolutely no idea whatsover what is happening any more. I don't even know who is doing well the league any more.

Fascinating video. Interesting that they kept the shape of the track with the road layout.

What a disaster this meeting is turning out to be all round.

I would say that he's a rider of similar ability to those riders, against a group of riders who aren't.

I don't follow all things Speedway as closely as I used to. Interesting that they are new. There is a definite downgrade in race coverage. It seems harder to follow how the meeting placings are going this year too, although that might be down to TNT going to adverts every 4 races.

Not sure who they are, but they could do with some coverage training.

Who is responsible for this coverage? Zmarzlik stalking Holder and they are showing the 2 riders at the back!

Yeah. That was the point of saying they'd get a bonus point for winning all their races. Although, thinking about it, there are no points for the LCQs and if you scored 15 you wouldn't be in one so you'd only get 18. I think leave the points scoring as it is. It's fine.

I actually don't have too much of a problem with the scoring as you need to look beyond Program Board nerds to attract a wider audience. If they did do that, though, I would go for 20 points for the winner, with a bonus point awarded for going the whole meeting unbeaten,

A good meeting. So, why was Madsen put through to the final instead of Holder? As someone who has become something of a casual follower of the sport, I don't know. But how on earth can you have 2 commentators, neither of whom know the rules on qualification for the final. that is seriously shocking. They really need to be doing their homework, or get someone in who has. Too often, situations arise and they quite happily admit to having no idea what is going on. Not good enough. With Bewley out, I'm struggling to retain interest this year. I really thought he was in with a shout this year, and with Zmarzlik still not 100% I think he may have gone into the lead last night. Zmarzlik, however. What can you say? The guy is well below his best so far, yet still top of the score chart. At least Kurtz looked more on the case yesterday, so could still challenge.

I've never heard of her either, but all you have to do is look on Youtube and there is plenty of stuff on there. It looks like she has done mainly football coverage before, and she looks like a good presenter - a proper professional with a very natural delivery style. Abi did well, but this does look like a bit of an upgrade for a change.

Thanks Rob.

For God's sake! I give up with this bloody sport. I decided to go and watch this. Waited until this evening to buy tickets - and it's cancelled. Do I get a refund then? That part seems to be missing from the statement. I don't particularly want to go to a rearranged fixture. I'm off work this week. My payment is still pending at the moment. Let's see if they still take it!

Double post

I'm not seeing anything on this on here, but it keeps popping up on my Facebook page. Swindon have a team and it looks very interesting. So far we have Jason Doyle, Rasmus Jensen and Peter Kildemand. Mad Korneliusen is given as a possible fourth member. I might even have been tempted to go if it wasn't being held on the other side of the World (ie Saddlebow Road). Looks like a good meeting anyway.

Should have re-run heat 15 just to give it a more satisfactory finish.

I'm not one to knock Kelvin unnecessarily, but good grief! There really needs to be someone who understands the scoring in the commentary box.

It wasn't the sprint race that cost Kurtz the title. It was having a poor round in Prague.

I'm sure I could fathom it out if I bothered to look into it. I just haven't. Presumably it's always been like that anyway with regards to semi final qualification etc., even going back to the A, B, C, D final. For example, today Doyle and Michelsen both scored 10, but in that old system one would have been in the A final and one would have been in the B final. For me, I was never that keen on the race points counting as GP points. I felt it made the final less interesting.