Grachan

The very first meeting I went to at Swindon was Swindon v Wolves in 1974, and it was announced that Graham Guthrie had died. He was named in the programme as anouncer for that meeting, but I never got to hear him announce. I also remember Bert Harrison announcing at Swindon in the 1980s.

Calm down Sidney. Nobody is having a go at Martin Ashby. I think the whole point here is that Martin was a great great rider for his clubs and, as mentioned, would go out on a limb to ride for them. Maybe he never had the true determination to translate that ability into World Finals. Remember that in 1975, all he had to do was block out Ray Wilson and he would have been in the world final, but he rode fairly and missed out. Woffy has tat single determination, and puts his championship aspirations first. That's what has put him where he is.

I think that was his point. Martin was one of those riders who was just too mild mannered to become a real World star despite having the ability.

A Belle Vue fan complaining about everyone else's tracks? That's funny.

That's what I said.

It's totally pathetic. Poor Charles Wright tonight. It's so bloody obvious that reserves should only move up to second string and heatleaders only down to second string. Or just revert to the proper race formula with proper averages. A total cock up.

If Wright wasn't there, would we be allowed to have Freddie Lindgren as a guest? Genuine question.

How come a month ago the whole track was good apart from bends 3 and 4 that needed a bit more time? Yet it still isn't ready? I don't get it. Certainly justifies the riders not racing before. So who said NL riders would have ridden?

Who a rider has on his World Championship team has no bearing on nationality. You see people on here saying that Kenny Carter was a "true Brit", but he teamed up with Ivan Mauger - as did Hans Nielsen.

Agree. With the race format as it is, riders should only go up or down one level at a time. So a reserve should only go up to second string and a heatleader should only be able to drop down to second string from a heatleader position. It's common sense.

The gulf between 1 and 7 is irrelevant because they don't race each other.

Best not to make such a comment then, if you haven't seen it. For much of the match there seemed no way past at Leicester, and if Swindon riders tried to they either ended up nearly falling off or actually falling off. Not the actions of a side trying to lower averages. It was a boring match. The only thing that kept me watching was that it was Swindon. One thing speedway needs to do is ramp up the team element so it doesn't just look like blokes riding round a track.

No idea. Just bringing it up as a possibility of what he might have been talking about.

Not any more. Its being scrapped, although I'm not sure when it comes into effect. People from Australia and New Zealand are now expected to pay the NHS surcharge, the same as all others from outside the EU. Edit: Came into effect 6 April. http://www.australiantimes.co.uk/uk-immigration-introduces-nhs-surcharge-for-aussies/

It's an apostrophe, not a hyphen, and there is one in Sainsbury's. http://www.sainsburys.co.uk I don't know what Rory's problem with the NHS is, but is it possible that, being Australian, they want him to pay for treatment? I know they are toughening up on overseas people not paying to use it.

I think that had a big effect on both Nick and Troy Bachelor. It's easy for people to forget that they are human beings sometimes. When Darcy came in the whole Swindon team seemded to go on a massive high, and that was suddenly pulled away in a cruel fashion. And Troy and Nick, of course, are also Australian and friends of his too. Some people obviously get affected more than others by things like that.

Not if the updates are anything to go on there wasn't. For me, you can expect some poor meetings from Tungate and Sedgeman. It's Nick Morris that is my biggest concern because he is there as a heatleader and at the beginning of last year looked extremely good. He seems to have lost the spark that gt him selected for Australia last year. Hope he can get it back.

The reason it's hard to pass is because of the track. The reason Swindon lost was because of their gating.

He never blamed the track. He blamed his side's gating, saying it's hard to pass on this track. Last night's meeting certainly didn't do much to prove otherwise. I only recall one decent race.

Very true. And that's half the battle in terms of improving.

I think Swindon have looked reasonable here after a bad start. You could see a real effort mid-match which led to some falls and some races being stopped with us in front, then being at the back in the re-run. A bit more luck and we could have been right in it.

To be fair, you can see the effort we're putting in. But you try to pass here and you're in trouble. Long term I think this team will do ok.

Must be time for Ulamek and Klindt to start putting in those last places soon.

There really does seem to be no way past on this track.

Team colours make teams easier to identify. Team colours make riders harder to identify.