Grachan

There was quite a long period when there was no speedway on television at all. I remember a campaign going in Speedway Star to get it shown. To see Hans Nielsen win the World Final in Poland I had to buy a video of it. The coverage we get now on BT (and on Sky previously) is excellent, but it is also very specialised. People aren't going to just put the tv on and stumble across some speedway these days.

I used to do Oxford, Swindon & Reading regularly too. The funny thing is, if it was the same now I wouldn't be able to afford it, which maybe says something about admission costs.

Jason Doyle getting in on the act now, saying on Twitter that yesterday's tracks (plural) were among the most dangerous he has ever ridden on. He says the riders were all ready to pull the plug after heat 7, but decided to keep going for the fans.

Troy Bachelor apologises to fans over the state of Poole's track: https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/speedway/17667825.troy-batchelor-apologises-to-paying-public-amid-poole-track-concerns-after-bank-holiday-flop/?fbclid=IwAR1oEGiT64Axm6N-hKC67j2YEL-9wvdRCPudNB_f4tn0ka0HSCK5u4Q6_tw

With IRR you can only use riders with a lower average.

He's got a good name anyway!

Is he any good?

Sounds shocking from the Adver updates. Not just the track, but the lack of organisation too, plus some poor refereeing.

Whatnon Earth is going on down at Poole? Just came online to check the result and it's not even finished! Looks like a disaster area, with riders coming off snd getting injured. Nightmsre for Swindon! What has happeded to Poole? It used to be a decent enough track. I see Klindt just went through the tapes. An act of self preservation maybe? I actually considered going to this but decided against it, partly because of reports on the track in recent weeks. Looks like I made the right decision!

Where is Kurtz? On paper, at least, this is a big loss for Poole. Kurtz has been one of the riders that can match Swindon's top end round Blunsdon this year. Swindon now have a big advantage at the top end. Poole still have the stronger bottom end, so should keep things close, but I can't see them getting a point with Kurtz missing. You never know, though.

So Simmons, who deliberately chucked races when riding for Swindon so he could drop down a league, lost respect for Rickardsson over his first bend manouvre in the Grand Prix? I know which one I have more respect for.

Where is the announcement of the rescheduled start time? Did anyone tell Swindon about this? The Swindon website says 11.30.

For God's sake! It had already been on Perk's Instagram and Phil the Ace had already posted on here that Perks had signed for someone before you came out with your big "revelation". Why do you do this? I get the impression from your normal posts that you are pretty knowledgeable on speedway. Why not just stick to that?

Perks confirmed.

Where does this information come from? I just looked up his recent scores and he's taken some useful scalps lately - eg Richard Lawson, Scott Nicholls, Lasse Bjerre and Steve Worrall.

The word on Twitter where?

Why do people have to be smart arses? Just explain to Falcon that the race where "Bellego" came from the back wasn't him. He was replaced by Heeps, but the commentators didn't notice. I thought it was Bellego at the time, too. They said it was, after all.

I remember going past Romford Greyhound Stadium on a train once. It would be a fantastic venue for speedway.

If Woffinden has, as you say, a good draw then it is the fault of the others for not picking that number. I enjoyed watching it. Zagar seemed to know what he was doing, taking a long straight for his first lap and then pretty much giving up, knowing he couldn't do that again. Nice to see later riders having to think a bit about what number to take. An interesting exercise, I thought. Would like to have seen riders questioned a bit more deeply on how they rode, what lines they chose and so on.

It's been confirmed by Swindon that Jason Doyle will be back in the team for this one.

Cook has a CL ave of 10.51. Divide that by 1.5 you get 7.00. Even if he had a CL average of 12.00 he'd still fit.

Pretty clear from this that it is: 18.10.3 The Guest must be in a current Team Declaration and have an MA that is the same or lower than that of the absent rider. If a rider has an established MA in both Premiership and Championship leagues the MA for the league for which the rider is guesting, will be used. If the rider does not have an established MA in that particular league then the conversion factor of 1.5 will apply.

I don't really see how Swindon can make a reserve change. What are the options? With a 3 points minimum, we can't go for a stronger reserve and a 2 pointer. Whoever we have will, virtue of our top 4, be weak compared to other reserves in the league. Taking this into account, I think Zach and James are doing as well as anyone else could be expected to be. At least they are in the thick of it and no being outclassed, so points will come here and there.

You could also say that if Ellis and Musielak had been more "pro" and not moved at the starts that Swindon might have picked up an extra 4 points and won by 10.

I was surprised Ellis wasn't in heat 15, but maybe it was felt he might twitch at the start under pressure? Having said that, though, Tobi was in instead and he is the other one who has been moving a lot at the start too. Rosco was a bit chirpy at the after meeting press conference, calling them both "pillocks" for moving and nearly costing Swindon the meeting!