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Jack not sure about riding at Sheffield as his home track after witnessing some nasty crashes and near misses. May be more complicated not to ride in UK at all as don’t believe him and his family will be eligible to live here if not working here so could mean setting up home in Poland

The Cairns family are based in Hertfordshire but distance is no problem for them. They think nothing of hiring and driving up to Workington to have a practice for 3hrs . Like most Leicester fans I am very disappointed that Will won’t ride for the Lions at present but understand and respect his decision maybe one day in the future. Although not sure if he may sign as a Lions asset and then be loaned to other clubs in a similar way that BV signed James Pearson then loaned him to Birmingham

The uncertainty with Birmingham has been the cause of mixed information about Lawson who due to logistics would prefer to remain in the East Midlands . But if the Lions were to lose a couple of riders to the Brummies then may be some changes in team plans

Well my choice is obviously very biased but it was Sky’s production followed by BT both of whom were very professional and forward thinking with their production with Sky making it HD, Jib cameras, Kerb cams,multiple slow mo’s then BT took over and made it a UHD production However this came at a cost with each Sky meeting production costing the same as what Eurosport spend for 5 UK meetings. There simply is no budget for UK racing everything is done using the cheapest option possible for example they use a lot of University students who are looking for unpaid experience that’s why we get some dodgy camera work and editing, vision mixing . The Sky production was normally a 15-18 main cameras and 2 slo mo plus 2-3 radio cameras while Eurosport is 4 main cameras plus 1-2 radio camera they don’t even pay the OB provider for lighting for presentation and instead Mr Morris brings his battery flood lights. Who knows when the contract is up for renewal again Sky may be interested as would now be a good fit for the Sky Sports + channel and is a good filler when no Football

As discussed on the official Speedway podcast a lot will depend on where William Cairns decides to sign for in Premiership. If he pledges his allegiance to Leicester then the RS at the start of season will know it’s only a contract up until end of June . The last I heard on the Cairns situation was that his family want him to ride for Leicester obviously but have said he can choose his Championship club but William will make the ultimate decision . Logistics have to be remembered too if he signs for a Monday night Premiership club means early rush to get Poland for U24 league

The crash happened just in front of camera so they must have held back showing the footage after speaking with Phil Morris on rider condition

That is what Paul Cairns wants to try and resolve this winter. Dan is now a lot more independent with his own mechanics and maybe a sit down with Mr Dickson can sort out their differences. If the sponsorship package is correct that can also change riders minds

When Cairns decides he wants to ride Premiership which he currently is stated a saying 2026 due to his Birthday not being until June it will be at Leicester Cairns will do NDL and Polish U24 league and be a wildcard in SGP2

Reports have been going around Leicester recently that Paul Cairns wants to meet with Dan Thompson and to resolve the issues so that he can return to Leicester with sponsorship on offer . He will not be on the RS list so can possibly see him being no6

Only Cubs NDL riders but do get additional benefits paid for like tyres, Kevlars

There was a number of reasons that this had to be sorted before the weekend firstly Eurosport needed to let their OB partner need to have their trucks and what crewing is required for example going to Ipswich will require an overnight stay and staff need to book trains etc Also as featured in press release clubs can now start promoting the meetings and riders can book flights

Maybe it was cost saving measure as they needed two 5-1s in 14 &15 having to face Becker and Fricke so thought why pay extra money out with an unlikely positive outcome

Have a feeling it will be Tungate and Brennan as Ipswich guests for the play offs which is the reason that Tungate has not been banned for missing recent Oxford meetings

It’s a rule that no other Speedway can be shown online if a Eurosport meeting is taking place. Due previous rain off there was always a good possibility that there would be a TV meeting next Monday to fill the contractual obligation . At least KL should have a good pick of guests

I have to agree production quality this year has been very poor with awful camerawork, bad vision mixing and poor directing The article below has a crucial statement saying that the broadcaster Eurosport had asked the OB provider to cut costs which they have done they are using an older OB truck with old cameras which is showing on screen with bad pictures , less experienced staff using Uni students for some roles but that’s what you get when you cut the budgets so much https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/experimenting-with-power-cloudbass-pushing-the-boundaries-of-sustainable-production-on-speedway-with-tesla-powerwall-batteries/

I am thinking about coming up to Oxford on Sunday to watch the Leicester meeting. However I understand that the Unipart car park is closed and have been advised not to park in the housing estate so any suggestions on where else I could park ?

This fixture was due to be televised but was changed to give Ipswich a TV meeting and commercially it would have been wrong to put it up against Leicester vs Spurs premiership football so any casual fans will likely choose the football. It is expected that live footage of Leicester vs Oxford will be shown during the Ipswich vs Sheffield match This will possibly be Leicester’s lowest attendance of the season with the football on as well. The club could have easily looked to move this fixture to next week BH Monday if it’s wet and don’t go ahead Leicester may not be able to restage it before cut off so best to get match raced and hopefully points on the table

Well in my mind that was an ok GP track was as expected with an average crowd unsure how Benfield make it pay though with all the costs that Cardiff involves but then selling lots of £15-20 tickets to try and fill specific areas for tv . i remover in the Sky days having a long conversation with John Posselwaite where he showed me how Cardiff was the most expensive event to put on with stadium hire even down to costs of bringing equipment over as we are an island that’s even 225 miles from ferry port. So whether this is a massive tax loss for Benfield’s other ventures not really sure. To me it was obvious that WBD Speedway operations team have had their mind elsewhere at the Olympics I think it was BMX,Canoeing and Judo that they were responsible for. it appears to have been a very half hearted production with no celebrities invited along to increase wider awareness of Speedway (Ronnie O Sullivan for example got over 500,000 interactions when he attended ), Pre meeting entertainment non existent,No wire camera for TV, less camera angles available, no winners parade and a very low key fireworks compared to previous years. However the result on track with British 1 and 2 was amazing hopefully both Dan and Robert can continue this GP form going forward. As a side note did anyone go to the Monster/ Woffy afterparty at Walkabout ? I wanted to go but knew Tai’s harder side of dance/techno would not have been to my wife’s liking so instead settled for a meal and a few cocktails

As explained to crowd last night by Stewart she was due to be induced twice as needs a C section but has been cancelled twice so fingers crossed baby should be born by Tuesday. Drew Kemp is guesting on Monday at Birmingham and he is looking forward to riding for Leicester again

I have it on good authority that unfortunately Bewley was knocked out for a good few mins hence the delay so I would expect minimum of 7 days. There was also a query over whether may have broken wrist so that maybe more what they are treating in Poland

A technical trial tonight that has not worked out as expected another cost saving move that shows things sometimes be left as they are

No it was a FIM Grasstrack meeting and was rearranged due to poor weather in France on Saturday. In fact it was the other way around if he had chose to return and ride for Leicester he would have got banned as he had signed into a FIM meeting

The key will be in the lock and is just waiting to be turned . Could a move be made to release Masters and Cook to put Becker at reserve

Not sure who he is riding for but Tom Brennan is riding at Leicester on Thursday so would assume that’s for Lawson but may be for Kings Lynn https://x.com/tombrennan27/status/1800111383004188915?s=46&t=VcpkOw3_5aPDHmLdpvaeng

As the SGP2 series is about driving online viewership on Discovery + it’s is likely that American and Australian riders commercially add little as the series is not available in these markets on D+ Doubtful any more Polish, Danish or Swedish rider will be added but expect Blodorn and possible another British rider to be included