RacerDon

Have to say the motorcycle stunt guys at start were very good. We could do without having a complete and utter clown in the referee's box next year though.

I suspect they were just preempting what everyone thought would be the right decision. I started to think he was going to exclude somebody when there was delay in announcing his decision, but was absolutely staggered to see the red light go on. The second instance came as no surprise, although an equally poor decision.

Was Leigh cheated twice?, I was at the stadium and haven't seen any replays at home since but from the TV replays on big screen I couldn't see how the ref could have awarded either rider in his heat with Hancock the outright win. Not really a good idea to well and truly screw a Robins rider with half of Swindon on a day out in Cardiff.

bang to rights. Of course I was only testing to see which of you were awake

So who thinks that Nicki Pedersen will refuse to ride in next year's British Final? (no me neither) As to this abject excuse for a top international referee I expect it will be business as usual, even though we should be looking at a GP series with a very exciting 4 point gap between the top two, rather than the 10 point gap Nicki undeservedly holds this morning. Anyone who had backed Bjarne Pedersen at 25/1 should feel especially cheated as he looked certain to qualify for final before Nicki rode into the back of him, and had a real chance of winning this. A great event ruined by a complete buffoon of a referee.

Actually it was mentioned 3 times in his first heat alone, (plus countless times afterwards), compounded with the 5 times Slovenian champion and the man from Mildura being in same heat. Amusingly Hampel even got a mention as having a Polish licence in the final. I knew this would be hard work when I heard Pearson on talksport this afternoon. ps I believe I was Tomacek's home track tonight.

Would that be Holta with the Polish Licence by any chance? God how that Millard needs a slap, repetitive boring twunt. ps I believe the referee might also have been from Poland

Except the rules of the competition for using a reserve/substitute are (supposed to be) rather different to those of football. D'oh

First he was ill, but looked very fit and well 5 minutes later when accompanying his replacement back to his pit area after he was fenced, then they said he was out with a foot injury, just as he appeared running on and giving Gollob the bumps. Whatever I'm glad he has such great powers of recovery, good luck to him.

Nice to see that Walasek's foot injury had recovered well enough for him to sprint out like a gazelle to give Gollob the bumps. Well done Poland.

Don't think Nicholls deserved to be excluded for Hans falling,(and I had money on Hans tonight), but then I thought there was a clearer case for exclusion for Pedersen going down. (and strictly IMO even clearer case for Crump being excluded earlier). All I'd say is when you set a precedent all evening of excluding the rider who has gone down it was a bit strange to take the opposite view in the Nicholls/Andersen incident. Just shows how hard it is for referee to make the right decision, as opinion seems completely polarised on all these incidents. At the end of the day it was probably best that AJ won, given many will consider that Hans was more than slightly fortunate to even be in the final.

Amazing Grand Prix. Not a single mention of Mildura in 22 heats, and just a single seven times Australian Champion. Is this a record ? Well done AJ, even though my money was on Andersen, ( AJ still available at 2/1 before rerun, wish I'd covered my bet, ho hum.)

And Jason Crump also got a few Mildura mentions, god help us when Mr M finds out where Travis McGowan is from

Hmm - I can think of a few riders who might have taken Scott out with his first bend manouvre on the rerun, and probably got a rerun with all 3 back in, in fact I doubt Nicholls would have even risked that move against many other riders. Then his reluctance to close the gate, like Crump did to Pedersen in other semi, has probably cost him 2 GPs, so all things considered nice guys probably do sometimes come last

Unless your name is Greg Hancock

Good GP, but too much bias on starting gate position, for such an event not a single winner from gate 2, and gate 3 a similar pig until late in the meeting, can hardly be satisfactory. As to Scott/Matej then depending on your country/club alliegance you will view Steele's decision as brilliant or inept, since all the ex-riders on Sky were very clear a wrong call had been made I prefer to go with them. However, with no extra points for being a losing semi finalist (dumb decision) then as I see it if you're trailing in third or fourth with no real prospect of catching second place rider then you might as well just ride whatever line you want and if you're lucky then other guy in third/fourth will fall off, get excluded and you'll get a rerun. Worked for Scott, but as they say what comes around goes around.... Few at Reading will have much sympathy with Matej after his pathetic effort on Wednesday then beating Crump and others 3 days later, Unfortunately the biggest loser from the incident was Greg Hancock

If having your front wheel completely taken away as you start your turn counts as a small bump then you have a point I suspect that if Hans Andersen had been the rider passing Zagar then it wouldn't have been the yellow light that went on I'm more annoyed that it cheated Hancock out of a final spot, if Matej had reached the final many questions would have needed to have been asked about why he was riding like a conference league junior at Smallmead on Wednesday..

Miracles rarely happen, shocking refereeing decisions much more frequently

There was severe abuse being shouted at the Danes from main stand by pits, much of it by women I sadly have to report, after the Andersen/Harris incident, in which I am not convinced Andersen did anything wrong other than try and win a race. And be honest none of them would have complained one iota if Pedersen and Andersen had been wearing GB race jackets and acting in exactly the same way. I suspect many of the perpetrators were not regular speedway fans, who probably think this is the norm, luckily it is extremely unlikely we'll being seeing them on any Monday night at Smallmead in the near future. Walking out I overheard a woman talking to her husband bemoaning the fact that she had been verbally abused for clapping a Danish heat winner. Unbelievable

Looking at the league table, that'll be two things then

Agree 100% Ruckeroo, I was pretty much in front of the riders as they approached the bend and Hans was clearly leading, but I never expected any other decision than the referee would exclude him, the crowd would have gone mental otherwise. I was absolutely anti towards Andersen at the start of the season, mainly on his performance in SWC at Poole, but really like him as a rider now, as to losing his temper then whilst not defending him it was perhaps understandable as it looked like giving the Aussies the initiative in the meeting, although in hindsight probably avoided Crump taking a 6 point ride in heat 20. Denmark were the best team on the night and Andersen and Crump looked a class above, shame Crumpy came off on last bend, he didn't deserve to finish off the rostrum.