Grachan

Go on then. What flight should he have booked?

I've just tried to fnd one for next Sunday or Monday, and it's not easy. Most of them leave in the morning and have 2 stops - taking about 14 hours. I then went to Ryan Air's site and tried to book one for next Sunday. There are none. The only option - when booking on Sunday - was on Monday at 12:30. This is the one that Lambert booked, and was delayed until 19.30. Perhaps those complaining would like to have a go and working out their own plan B. Do they, themselves, work out a plan B when booking a holiday flight? Just have a look. He booked the first logical flight that was available.

I would guess that they are all on pretty full-on schedules and at the mercy of airlines. This could probably happen to any rider at any moment. As someone has said - Lambert was in Latvia not Poland so would be taking a different flight to others.

Suppose these 22 riders had all booked the same flight bar Lambert - and their flight was a nightmare with cancellations and so on - and Lambert had made it back in time. Everyone would have been singing his praises, yet none of the riders would have done anything different to what they did anyway.

Who, I see, scored a paid maximum for Rye House against Somerset, and beat Jason Doyle 3 times.

Interestingly, I have some Speedway Stars from the 60s, and one of them has an article bemoaning the lack of characters like the ones they used to have in the 50s. Plus ca change....

This was my first visit this year. I expected to see the biggest crowd of the season - Poole, Bank Holiday and nice weather. And it was a good crowd. When we arrived I was a bit horrified to see the crowd for the turnstiles snaking right along the stadium wall and round to the back straight. I thought we'd be ages getting in, but, fortunately, they were all queing for one turnstile. The other one had about 10 people waiting! British and queueing, eh? I enjoyed the match. As others have said, for the first two-thirds I don't think there was a single pass, but the scores kept it close and the crowd seemed happy enough with what they were watching. The racing improved dramatically in the last few races - possibly after the riders reportedly told them to stop watering it? It did get more dusty though. Someone said to me before hand that Adam Ellis has a new engine that is extremely fast and to watch out for him. That was an understatement. He shot out from the start in both his first two rides, and was miles ahead. It's like he was so fast that he couldn't keep up with himself! And then came off both times. He was then unbeaten for the rest of the night. Sensational from Adam. I was hoping he'd have been out in heat 15, just because I wanted to watch him again. Apparently there are only two of these engines being used at the moment. I never thought to ask who is using the other one. Robert Lambert maybe? Just a guess though. Poole were okay. The doom and gloom from Dorset is bound to happen, as results aren't going their way, but this is a decent team. I can still see them in the play-offs come the end of the year. Shanes for Nielsen? Not sure how well that will go, but at least Mitchell Davey was able to get a point! Great race from Zach to pass Sundstom in heat 14 - a race that won him man of the match. Personally I'd have gone with Ellis, who looked like a World beater tonight once he got to grips with the speed of the bike!

12 all after 4 heats. http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/speedway/16200554.SPEEDWAY_LIVE__King_s_Lynn_Stars_vs_Swindon_Robins/

I always like Ari when he was at Swindon. He was always popular with the ladies, too, possibly due to the fact that he wouldn't have looked out of place in the band A-Ha! He was a classic case of a rider who could score next to nothing one week and then hit double figures the next. Two meetings come to mind. One was at Coventry, when he broke the track record. That rather stunned everyone and led to discussions about whether or not the timekeeper got it wrong! Another is when he clattered into the safety fence on bed two at Swindon, right next to where I was standing. It was one of those crashes where you could hear metal against metal. A very nasty crash, and one that had first aid people running over to assist him, and help him gingerly make his way back to the pits. He then came out and won all his remaining rides. I was sad to hear this - particularly as he was only 58.

Thought we were going to use Anders Rowe - or is he still too young?

It's been going on for years. I once bought a copy of the 1967 rules on ebay and it contained loads of typed out amendments, on sheets of paper which were just folded up and put inside the actual book.

That's where the issue will really come into effect - if a team wants to re-declare by replacing one rider over 8 with another, but also have a second rider over 8. Will they be prevented from doing that?

So we have 18.14.3, which says: "A Team Member (#1 – 5) is subject to a maximum of 4 programmed rides, with the possibility of one nomination as an RR (or IRR or TS) and for Heat 15. " And we have 18.12.2, which states: "A Tactical Substitute... Allows a programmed rider (including a rider taking an RR or an IRR) to be nominated as a TS." So, a rider can be used as a Tactical Substitute in an R/R ride, which, surely (it always did before anyway) would allow them to take a TS ride plus a R/R ride. But 18.4.3 seems to indicate that a rider cannot take a TS AND a R/R ride. Surely this is not what they mean. It pretty much stops you using a Tac Sub in a match if you are using R/R for someone. At Leicester, Swindon were prevented from using Troy Bachelor as a TS in an R/R ride.

Rosco is not too complimentary about the situation in todays Advertiser, saying it's ridiculous that the PL is protected on Thursdays, yet we have teams riding on Wednesdays when they don't have priority, with only Swindon riding on a Thursday.

You don't need him. I am correct. I spent my formative years obsessed with averages. Whether or not a rider is replaced is irrelevant in terms of average. It is only relevant in terms of how many rides are counted towards his total in the meeting. Two minute exclusion - not counted towards averages. Tapes exclusion - counts towards averages. Exclusion for moving at the start.. .er... dunno. You never had that when I was obsessed with averages.

It does. Unless there has been a recent rule change, a tape exclusion counts as a ride in the averages. If they are replaced, it doesn't count as one of the rides for the meeting, but still does in regards of the rider's average. A two-minute exclusion does not count towards the averages. The only doubt I have is that this is a fact from about 20 years ago, so may have changed. But it was certainly the case in the past and I'm 99.9% certain it still is.

It does, however, count as a ride in the averages.

He is correct though. You could have replaced the rider anyway, regardless of whether or not he broke the tapes.

Interesting to see that the top 3 teams are the 3 that were forced to load off an 8-pointer this year.

Following on updates, with Swindon 2 down going into the last, I just KNEW that Danny King was going to pop out and win heat 15. I was quite relieved when he wasn't used. Great win for Swindon, who looked out of it early on.

It's even in this year's rules that a rider can be used as a t/s in an r/r ride (rule 18.2.2). So lord knows why we were prevented from doing it. Bad refereeing.

It always could.

It's not just about riders trying, it's about the significance of the race for supporters in terms of how important it is. The frustrating thing is that the 2 points for a win of 6 or less was dropped because, apparently, it meant fans were disappounted if they dropped a point. Surely that was the whole point of it and why it worked. For me, if the match is won, I would be more than happy to see a rider who needs to bring his average down come out in heat 15 and throw in a nice, handy last place. Jason Doyle himself tweeted last year that it looked like he had ridden himself out of a job, which almost proved to be the case until Somerset picked him up. And I'm not even going to try to explain the "46 points to win a match but the average is 42.5" logic. It's been done to death on here.

Yup. And the home team supporters won't give a stuff if they do.

Well I think it has taken a lot away from what was a good scoring system. I would think that an awful lot of supporters couldn't give a stuff if the away team gets a point and would be a lot more interested in whether their own side loses one. Out of interest, were any Swindon fans gutted that King's Lynn gained a point from heat 15? Did any even notice?