IainB

Having SO many wildcards, where is the jeopardy? Some riders can just plod along "safe" in the knowledge that they'll get a wildcard if they miss a round due to "injury" if they're having an average season. Those riders who do go through the qualifying series don't come up against these "world class" riders in world championship qualifying events so don't have the opportunity to compete at the level needed to make the grade

As @piepower said this seems perfect for junior level Speedway with riders progressing onto 500cc meths. Buy a standard piece of kit that you can "turn up" as you progress. The authorities have the power at the moment to dictate technical rules regarding the addition of "trick" parts, so if they don't do it at the moment there's nothing to suggest they'd stop riders adding trick parts to these electric bikes if they were to be used as replacements for the 500's. There's also the sound issue, for me that is a massive part of Speedway, often if it doesn't sound fast... it doesn't look fast. Look at F1, since they've moved from the V10 & V8 screamers to the low revving hybrids... it just doesn't sound fast anymore, and they know it! For me I'd be happier watching the seniors on something more like the 250cc machines the SGP3 riders were using, sounded fast, looked fast and the riders seemed to be approaching the limits of their machines so there was more emphasis on the riding skills of the riders to make the difference.

We'll have seen Poole & Scunny 3 times at BP this year before the season is out and with PL being down by at least 2 clubs next season I'll be surprised if they don't switch to 2 home and 2 away to match PL

What about David Darcy?

Has more right to be in the series than a lot of the others who elected not to qualify and rely on their past performances

Stewart Dickson is about to take over at the King Power I understand

You could be forgiven for thinking they tracked a CL team this season though

Not when they've specifically been mentioned in the Leicester press release as a reason for the Lions moving up... no

Leave Poole to mop up the dregs... maybe they'll go NDL

Yes, I must admit I'm pretty nonplussed about the move up but it probably makes sense based on the geographical locations of the other clubs in the top league. I kind of liked the 7pm start time also, especially with the length of time it takes Leicester to run meetings... they'll have to pull their fingers out on a school night Would love to see Vaculik and Przedpelski come back and give it a proper go at BP

Track has consistently produced the best Speedway I have seen anywhere this year... and riders from better teams than Birmingham will be visiting, so it's not a problem

Brilliant night for Robert Lambert with an almost Fricke like performance

Well done to the Aces. A Belle Vue v Sheffield final should be a cracker!

Could easily see him at Poole next season

They've been superb! 2 of them even finishing on the winning team, especially Nick, only dropped 1 point... win, win for The Lions

Worrall, King & Kemp have really let their clubs down tonight!

Brady Kurtz has really come on since he left Poole

I haven't read through the rest of this but interesting that they went for Lambert and not Bewley... was that down to averages?

One positive thing I will say is that the SGP3 was easily, by some distance, the best DSE meeting this year and that was a one off... hmm

Haven't the wild cards been named the day after the last GP in the last few years? I'm assuming there's some issue as regards riders accepting them this year

Thank god that's over... shambolic from start to finish

Well, that's the first season of the "new era" under Discovery Sports Events... and I'm far from impressed. They seem to have taken the sport back about 20 years! They've lost most of their major sponsors, crowds appear to be amongst the lowest we've ever seen for a GP series, some badly prepared tracks, they've almost killed Cardiff, the racing has generally been, I'll be polite, forgettable, series wrapped up before the final GP, incomprehensible scoring system, no Aussie GP and Russian GP (understandable), neither were replaced in the calendar. Terrible TV coverage often missing the racing when there was some, inaccurate and random captions, horrible noise over EVERY replay. Still the pits look nice and some people have said they've enjoyed the post meeting fireworks!

Difficult to work out with different points systems and 2007 having 11 GP's compared to this seasons 10 but going on actual race points averages per meeting, it reads as follows: 1st NP 16.27 3rd JC 11 1st BZ 12.2 3rd MJ 8.9 Shows, like you said, what a dominant season NP had in 2007!

Ah... double points for the final, what would the gap have been without double points? I'll have a look tomorrow

Crumpy wasn't too shabby was he? There's been 4 GP's in Poland for Magic this year. Janowski 2 podiums Crump 3 podiums And wasn't 2007 the KO system?