Aries

Totally agree and this has always been a bugbear of mine. There’s enough home advantage as it is and a home team should never be allowed to use a tactical.

Nice words from him about the new management at Ipswich though. He hasn’t been the first to compliment them either. Actions speak louder than words obviously but it’s encouraging all the same from an Ipswich perspective.

That Lawson made it quite clear to them early on that he had no interest in returning.

Always hard to predict as we know an injury or two (we know at Ipswich all too well) can bollox all your best plans! A strategic change or two can also make a huge difference. But as a bit of fun, as it stands I’d go for Sheffield Belle Vue Leicester/Lynn/Ipswich Northampton Genuinely can’t split the three teams below Sheffield and Belle Vue, they all look similar to me for different reasons. Leicester and Ipswich very similar, Lynn have more top end strength, but lose out at reserve. No matter how talented the kids are, they’ll be up against much stronger and experienced reserves in the short term. If Sheffield are injury free come September, they’ll win at a canter.

Let’s hope we get the Sheffield Tobi from a couple of seasons ago. On his day can beat the best in the League we’ve seen him do it. Things obviously weren’t right for him at Lynn whether that be the ankle injury or other reasons going by what you believe, and Birmingham was just a disaster for everyone with so much uncertainty which couldn’t have helped riders’ form. Let’s hope this move settles him down again and he produces what we know he’s capable of.

Another example but in reverse, is Jason Doyle. Was knocking around the reserve berth at Poole on a 4 and a half point average approaching his mid twenties before something clicked! World Champion. Appreciate that’s a unique case that’s not exactly common. So on one hand best not to put too much expectation on youngsters who seem to have all the talent, but at the same time not write off riders who don’t immediately produce early in their career.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Elite_League_speedway_season Just looking back to 2003 when John Louis chucked a 16 year old Danny King straight in to Elite league action, and he averaged 5.47 in a very very tough league full of quality. Cairns didn’t even manage that at reserve in a poor standard Championship. But that doesn’t mean he won’t progress to be a world class rider. Some of the best riders of all time started their careers slowly without much fanfare, while others who were hyped to the eyeballs early doors never progressed to anything other than average journeyman. It’s almost impossible to predict. Boughen was another who was hyped to death and look what happened there. Drew Kemp also.

All tracks can serve up dull meetings even the best ones like the NSS especially early in the season. You’ll get more entertaining ones than dull ones around there though over the course of the season.

They’d have run in to the same problems we did at Ipswich. Speaking to the new promotion last week, they contacted several GP riders and all “politely declined” as they already had their season mapped out. A few of them WERE open to riding here in ‘27 though so more options likely on the table for both Ipswich and Northampton next year.

Fancy Zagar to be in there along with Lidsey and Klindt. We’ll see.

Hopefully it returns as we get stuck in to the season. We all love our Speedway despite the noise and the habit is difficult to shake off at least for the majority of us. Stick with it Iain we DO have a positive in that we’ve got a brand new track up and running, and let’s hope this time next year we have another one or two joining the party and things look a lot healthier.

Premiership season kicks orf tomorrow and nobody has started a thread 😂 when was the last time that happened in years gone by? Been a winter of turmoil and it’s obviously (understandably) affected people’s enthusiasm. Anyway, fancy an away win here. Belle Vue are always a strong home side but have a tendency to start the season slowly and Sheffield have a better side.

And they’re already working on the team for ‘27, almost certainly will be a big hitter at 1..

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02362212/filing-history Updated today.

Rule one broken already. In all the years Louis has been promoting, no rider has ever missed press and practice and he would never allow it. Same kevlars as last year also, so cost cutting has already commenced where the returning riders recycle their kevlars from last year.

“Companies House must be updated within 14 days for changes to directors or people with significant control (PSCs)” https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02362212/officers Almost a month on, and Chris Louis is still registered as an active director, and the person with significant control. Richard Coleman and Andrew Chisholm, nowhere to be seen. Whats going on there?

Agree. He definitely has the ambition to be mixing it with the worlds best in the GP’S and I know from talking to Ritchie last year that he feels he’ll make it. Having the extra pressure and responsibility of being THE main man at the top of the team instead of having the comfort blanket of Emil and Doyle doing the heavy lifting, may well help pull him along even quicker. Hopefully he thrives on the extra responsibility.

We can dine on last year for 12 months no problem. We’ll defend our title properly in ‘27 when we have the same opportunity as everyone else to build our team 😁