Paulco

yes indeed . Really looking forward to the play-off match v Cardiff

The Mail was pretty amateurish though , the amount of mistakes in it ( spelling and otherwise ) was unbelievable .

<sigh>

I expected to read this thread and see the usual Speedway Star bashing . So the new format must be liked as there's no bashing to be found , hardly . I think it's great and long may the magazine continue .

Hahaha . It says he's going to mingle with the fans and listen to the comments . Wonder if he'll venture up to the first bend on the 5th of April ? He'll hear some interesting comments there

Good luck to big Lee Dicken in his comeback

In the unlikely event Winter has buggered off and let Spring out of it's cage , we will all enjoy our season opener at the Velodrome . As per usual it's that mob from along the M8 who first foot us , and a pretty tasty looking side our skint friends from the East have assembled . They had a bit of a setback when Sam Masters was refused a visa after Darcy Ward swapped passports when he wasn't looking , but they have moved quickly to replace him with the talented Claus Vissing . 3 o clock starts this season remember , as folk were complaining it was after midnight when they were getting home last year . And of course it's the new era at Ashfield with the new promotion in place . So i've no idea how both teams will line up , but i'll hazard a guess and let the know alls point out where i've went wrong . Glasgow Tigers 1 Joe Screen 2 Joey Ringwood 3 James Wright 4 Henning Bager 5 James Grieves 6 Harley Horwood 7 Joe Jacobs That Edinburgh Mob 1 The Cookie Monster 2 Desperate Deek 3 The Golden Child 4 Theo the popular Monarch 5 Crazy Claus 6 The dodgy German reserve 7 Tobacco Joe So thermals at the ready and lets hope we get our 2013 season underway .

Edinburgh are asking for somebody to house Vissing as he wants to base in the area , which suggests it's more than just temporary .

To quote my sadly missed favourite Monarch poster , King Jamie , 13th yer baws

Are we keeping you up Junior Fan ? . Dont get upset guys , i just think the NL should be open to Commonwealth riders too , regardless whether they have dual nationality or not .

I would open it up even more . The NL should be open to the likes of Mitchell Davey , Jake Anderson etc , who are perhaps that wee bit below PL standard , but could benefit from NL racing . Surely they would add more to the development of young British riders in regards to competition more than having old stagers like Jon Armstrong and Tony Atkins taking the places of youngsters .

Yes of course they should

Another thread that started off interesting , but wasted by the know alls telling everyone how stupid they are . I feel for poor Sidney , everytime he adds input to a conversation , the pack converge on him .

No he's not . Who actually is , is still uncertain

There is that , but not being able to use the t/r after heat 12 has helped in that respect

Why did the 13 heat formula get binned anyway ? Because that format had a tired look about it at the time . The second halves started with a reserves race , which featured the two number sevens from both sides and two track juniors . Then you had three rider of the night heats wich the three winners plus the fastest runner up made the final . You had another reserves race before the final . If we had a southern based team up at Glasgow , they were generally keen to get on the road and few tried very hard in the rider of the night heats . You normally ended up with mainly home riders in the final . Sometimes some away riders didn't even bother hanging around for the 2nd half , which turned the whole excercise into a farce . We tried 15 , 16 and 18 heat formats since then , but i think what we have now probably works best .

He told me a couple of weeks back he was doing the Ben Fund and then taking a back seat . He'll probably fill in now and again when necessary .

Especially when he started peeling the bandages off and there was nobody there

Swindon have previous with this kind of behaviour . They did the same when they said they were buying Jonasson from Edinburgh .

Think it's up to the individual track mate . I did for the Glasgow page about 4 years ago and was asked to do it by our centre green presenter .

I agree , it's fascinating at times to see the antics at the tapes before the start of a race and moving the tapes back to where they were before would be a good move . It would also , presumably , get rid of the Armadale optical illusion which awarded riders races when they looked about a wheel length behind . Of course there is the safety issue regarding the current 3rd/4th bend being turned into the 1st/2nd bend , but an experienced and capable track curator such as Doc Bridgett must be confident that particular problem can be overcome successfully or the change wouldn't have been considered . Any change to try and enhance the product for the spectators has to be applauded and it's in everybodies interest that this proves successful .

that's the reason for all the argument , there's no clarity

don't , it will start all the paranoia off again

It did seem strange the appeal for Horwood was successful in such a short period of time after the initial rejection of his application .

Great post Scotchopper . Speedway is riddled with the secret sam stuff and it is now in the best interests of everybody to have more clarity , plus having a governing body run by the very people decisions will have an impact on doesn't help the paranoia . Glasgow fans , well a section of them , feel aggreived as they feel the BSPA has some sort of bias against them . There was the brushing under the carpet of the Bellego ownership argument , which eventually went against us . There was the refusal to let us switch to a Friday racenight and now we have another battle to fight to have the 7 riders signed actually allowed to get to the tapes wearing the stripes . Having the BSPA chairman promoting at our greatest rivals only adds fuel to the paranoid flame when decisions go against us . I'm in no doubt any bias against us exists only in our imagination , but it's easy to see why there is a feeling of the world being against us when these issues arise . I fear the appeal against the decision to refuse Joey Ringwood will go against us next week , which will spark off yet another outburst of outrage . For that reason i hope i'm wrong .