Grachan

Pretty sure John Boulger made a Gotenburg final.

What's to stop fans of both sides doing that, thus evening things out?

The thing is, if you're not interested in it then you don't have to do anything. Just watch the racing. 13 heats using to old race formula and 2 nominated races at the end. That's it.

I'm unlikely to vote either, but I'm quite happy to see what the result is from those who do vote and just go along with it. That's fine by me. You don't have to vote.

Why should there be? Isn't that what it's supposed to encourage anyway. As long as the managers put their top 4 up for the vote then it's swings and roundabouts anyway. If you are voted weak in heat 14 you are strong in heat 15.

I think it's quite a fun idea. When it seemed that it was a case of just voting for heat 15 it seemed open to abuse, but this way it works well, as it's for heat 14 rather than heat 15. I do think there should be some way of supporters at the stadium to vote, if they wish, without using a phone. I certainly won't be logging on to Twitter while at a match, although I appreciate some people will do that. I can't see it ever catching on, but as a bit of fun for a season opening tournament it might be ok.

I must say, that track does look a good shape. I hope it will be as good as people are hoping. For a long time now we've had a problem with riders just spacing out down the straights. Hopefully this will solve that a bit and keep races closer. It will be interesting to see how it rides. I can't see many people wanting to stand on bends 1 and 2 though!

By the stadium owner, not by the speedway promotion who are guilty of nothing other than, perhaps, being a big naïve in believing everything they are being told. It's good to, at least, see something happening there, but it seems it's the club that are doing it rather than the owners.

Are you really a Belle Vue fan, or are you another forum member posing under another name? Why are going on about the stadium like you are? Swindon fans know there are concerns, but we don't need supporters of other tracks coming here and taking the mickey about it, just because they now have their own new track. I think there's only one person who needs to grow up.

Interesting that Terry Russell talks about "his" contractors and "the clubs" contractors. It certainly gives the impression that the club are paying for this rather than the stadium owners.

I went to the Basketball play-off final a few years back. It's a great show, but they do, of course, have the advantage of the indoor lighting/facilities and so on. Interesting, also, that it attracts their biggest crowd of the season, but the play-off winners are not also league champions.

I did actually think about that. I knew it was one or the other, as it was often misspelt, and then went with the wrong one!

Possibly Broadbanks, although he was a bit before my time and I never saw him ride for the Robins. Briggs was, too, but his record speaks for itself so I included him anyway.

Have to agree with you on Billy Saunders. Even in 1983/84, when he was being talked about as a contender at the start of televised meetings, I never really saw it.

To be fair, Jason Crump was a brilliant number one for Swindon, who practically saved them following their relegation, so could, perhaps, justify inclusion. But it was only for one season and in the lower league, so not for me. Janowski never looked like a world class prospect until leaving Blunsdon though.

Definitely. Likewise a Swindon fan having Maciej Janowski or Jason Crump. 1. Barry Briggs 2. Leigh Adams 3. Phil Crump 4. Jason Doyle 5. Martin Ashby Reserves! Jimmy Nilsen and Bob Kilby

You could easily flip that to say that an injury to a rider can give a lesser rider a greater chance of winning, thus making it easier to win a one-off final if you are not the best in the World.

Oh, definitely. But to win the meeting you had to win the final. It didn't matter how well you did in the other races as long as you stayed in. A Nielsen/Gundersen final was by no means a cert for Hans, even if Erik had to go through eliminators to get there. For example, Nielsen gets through every ride with a first or second. Gundersen has a bad night, scrapes through an eliminator due to another rider being excluded. Makes the final. Wins it. Gundersen gets more GP points the Nielsen.

I think it would have depended on the format. I've always felt that the old Knock Out system in the GPs would have suited Gundersen more than Nielsen. On a system of race points I think Nielsen would have dominated, but in the KOs I think Gundersen would have had an edge because he just needed to scrape through to the final and then win it.

I think, if the Grand Prix had been in effect earlier, Hans Nielsen would be seen as the undisputed best rider of all time, but for a while he always seemed to mess up the one-offs for some reason. A Grand Prix system would have been much more forgiving of those mistakes.

It was before my time, but I have always assumed Bob was taken away from Swindon and given to Exeter by Rider Control in order to allow Martin Ashby to return from the Falcons. So, Bob coming back to Swindon seems fair as he was originally taken away. What seems unfair is Oxford losing Middleton, if they had paid a fee for him. Rider Control was a strange beast, which would never be allowed to work today. There were a lot of strange events at Oxford, in particular, with that system.

I remember being in the "posh" end, just before the first bend and spent the whole evening moving my head about trying to see the racing with so many people standing in front. I was only 13. Bob was brilliant in both matches, and it was such a big deal when he returned to Swindon the following year.

The biggest crowd I ever saw at Swindon was a double header in 1974 against Hackney and Belle Vue - with Bob Kilby guesting for the opposition in both matches. I didn't even get in the stadium until about heat 4 of the first match because of the queues, and you literally could barely move in the stadium. It was rammed solid all the way round. That was my first season watching speedway, and I've never seen a crowd like that since at a domestic meeting.

Tougher than individual final line ups. Grand Prix meetings pretty much consist of the best 16 riders in the World. Individual finals didn't. For example, nobody would say that Peter Collins wasn't a deserving champion in 1976, but the top 2 riders in the World from the previous season weren't in the meeting. Of course, you could argue that it was because qualification was more difficult, but as meetings themselves, the GPs have stronger line ups. World finals also always had 4 or 5 fillers.