IainB

Could a rider from one of the lower Polish leagues be drafted into the Ekstaliga as a replacement due to injury? And if so would the 2 leagues only rule be applied? Meaning, would a rider have to drop a league mid-season?

Going off topic for a while... A cartel still operates with the traditional big 4 supermarkets you can see this when they "take turns" offering the same products at "discounted" prices. It's a real bug bear of mine. 1 supermarket will for example sell a bottle of Jack Daniels for £16 for a week or 2 while the others price it at £25, then after a couple of weeks the next one will sell it for £16 and that original supermarket will hike its price to £25. This happens with many product lines, it means you either pay it, travel to 4 different supermarkets to do your shop, or what I do is just bulk buy when the product is "on offer" (the price it should be being sold at). Rant over!

Now we're talking Steamway

To be fair they do call themselves promoters lol Boxing still have promoters and what a murky world that is! But to your general point, I've been having a "discussion" on the Leicester thread about "promotion" and somebody pointed out to me that the Bates family are successful business people that run a number of successful businesses and are basically just Speedway fans. They run Sheffield and Leicester as fans and put management teams in place to run the club. Don't get me wrong I'm glad they are running Speedway but it doesn't seem to be the way to be getting Speedway out of the fine mess that it's gotten itself into.

I don't mind a bit of tractor racing if it's actually doing something like bringing the track back into a raceable condition. I've seen too many tractors doing too many laps just trying to move non-existent dirt back onto the racing line and the watering of a track in parts where the riders never ride. Didn't the BSPL put the TV contract out to tender and there were multiple offers and they decided to opt for Eurosport to attract sponsors to free to air TV. How's that one worked out? Has that brought a League sponsor? Has it brought in any European sponsorship? Has it brought in any sponsorship? In fact here we are in the height of summer where Sky Sports are having orgasms about "The 100" and our "Broadcast Partner" are showing repeats of Olympic action and there's no Speedway until the 16th of August!

Not ALL fossil fuels are bad, just like not ALL plastic is bad. It's the big emitters and the big single plastic users that need to change to allow acceptable use of fossil fuels and plastic. A big part of all motorsport is the noise and I don't think you're going to get that without some sort of internal combustion engine. I don't see why we can't live in a world where some fossil fuels are still used for motor sports, vintage cars etc. While the rest of the world has moved away from them

What I would say in response to this is that the majority of us actually bring small screens to meetings, wouldn't it be good if there was some Facebook live coverage of behind the scenes interviews, race summaries etc. instead of us having to endure endless tractor racing. All it needs is somebody with a phone to actually do the transmission. At the Cricket and Snooker you see quite a few people wearing ear pieces, I assume they're listening to a commentary.

Do "junior" Speedway bikes (non 500cc) run on methanol also?

Also don't forget that GP positioning does not truly reflect race points scored. When you look at his actual GP race points of 10,7 & 8... it's not too far away from his 7.67 match average in Poland which actually puts him at a slightly better 22nd in the list of the Ekstraliga.

2 GP's does not a season make. As I said in my original comment yes I think Fred is under performing a bit. But you can't deny there's some real track specialists riding for Polish clubs, always have been, always will be. Kolodziej is another example, a far tougher opponent in Poland than he would be in a GP at Mallila. So you also need to list those riders competing in the Ekstraliga that aren't in the GP's. Case closed

So track knowledge and "track specialists" play no part in Speedway? Poland seem mostly unable to win anything at world level outside of their own country. Let's hold all of the GP's at Wolverhampton and then see who ends up as World Champion, Zmarzlik probably wouldn't even qualify for the following years event!

Thanks for saying it's ridiculous, how kind of you... erm rude! I suggest if you think about it, racing Miedzinski at Torun is a far more difficult challenge than facing most of the GP field at Prague or Vojens etc. Each Polish club will have riders with far more track knowledge, having done hundreds of laps around their home track than riders pitching up for 1 or 2 nights at a GP venue.

I've never seen anything quite like that, the riders seem really invested in their clubs (until they go and ride in a different country of course ). In my mind I was comparing it to what I saw on Saturday night when Poole won at Leicester and the Poole riders sheepishly came out from the pits to clap at their fans, no criticism of Poole, well done to them for doing it. The riders got close to the fans but not too close until a photographer wanted a photo of them in front of the fans, it all looked a bit awkward... a bit different though when you've got a crowd of 600 in front of you celebrating as opposed to the 16 or so at Leicester Is Freddie underperforming though? Probably a little bit yes, but I would suggest that these days the Ekstraliga has a stronger line-up, in the heats that Freddie rides in and the tracks that Freddie rides on than in the GP's

To compare Speedway to cricket, all the Speedway competitions are the same, just with a different name, the format is always the same 15 heats, 4 riders, 4 laps, 3,2,1,0 point scoring. Yes there is a pairs event and a 4's event but these are one off's. There's no variation... oh excuse me, you can't tac-sub in a KoC match... that's it, really? That's the vision?!? How about a competition where the matches consist of devil take the hindmost races, 1 lap dashes? Saw a number of these at Stoke, I think, and they were quite entertaining. You get 3 first bends per race, which generally where all the action happens and a match race, which can also be quite entertaining, just thinking out loud but it's something different.

You can see this by the crowd that Cardiff attracts, as a bit of Speedway purist, I go to watch the event because of its importance (World Championship round), the racing and the atmosphere. The downside (for me) is that there are a lot of people at the event that are p1ssed up on the booze, it's generally ok as I can move to seats away from these annoyances but I've never seen anybody p1ssed up at a league match. This is born out by a "discussion" I'm currently having on the Leicester thread about various issues with Speedway in general and some with Leicester in particular. There are some people that seem to think that because there is Speedway at their track that everything in the garden is rosy and that the sport doesn't really need promoting that much. The if you build it they will come style of promotion. Clubs should never be happy with their attendances unless they're playing to full houses. I'm not sure that many do dislike them, they probably don't like them when they're at the start or end of the season as fixture fillers but some of the biggest attended meetings I've been to were Individual meetings held in the height of summer on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons. World Championship Qualifiers, Rick Miller Testimonial, Golden Hammer, Pride of the East etc. etc. These events used to carry some history and prestige... until they were stuck at the end of the season with weakened line-ups and the punters saw through this. Isn't this basically what Buxton, Somerset & Scunny were/are?

Looks like the same crowd numbers the Speedway used to get The place is looking good though!

They seem to be big merchandise wearers at Leicester though, you see no end of people wearing the stuff

I stand corrected, a prog board, badge and pre-order scarf

But do the Foxes and Tigers outsource their merchandise? As for Jaybea the only League Championship winning merch that I could see was a badge... or a scarf that can be pre-ordered with delivery from the 24th of November!!! That in my book is rubbish!

I haven't but I will do... Anyway I thought that's what these discussion forums were all about. I'll let you know what the reply is and we can discuss it some more. Blimey... this sounds like a coup I just wonder why the Bates got involved with Leicester (Don't get me wrong, I'm glad somebody has) when they already had an interest in Sheffield... was it to give Josh a team place? Isn't Damian Bates also on the BSPL Management Committee? Maybe he's got too many fingers in too many pies to give them his full attention, a bit of plate spinning going on maybe?

Yes, you can certainly tell that Dan & Joe have done a lot of laps around the track when you watch them.

You can suggest all you like... can you tell me what I am allowed to comment on, on this discussion forum? Should I run my posts by you first for moderation? You're not going to like this but what a ridiculous thing for the club to do to just sell the merchandise rights with no say on what is or isn't produced. In most other industries that produce merchandise this is a major income stream. Interesting what you say about the club not being the main source of income for the promoter at 90% of Clubs, that is probably one of the main reasons why the sport is in the state it's in. I wonder what the game plan is for the promoters of a club? Is it benefactor, self satisfaction, play thing, profitable business, love of the sport? I've always thought that some kind of fans cooperative would be a better operating model for minor sports clubs. I've been attending speedway since the late 70's and have watched it deteriorate year on year for every year since then. I was at BP on opening night and have watched the crowds decline since then. The current promotion will inevitably leave the club at some point in the future along with the messiah. yet I'll still be there... undoubtedly with less people standing around me.

100% agree, I thought the racing was far better when we were in the top division and put this down to the quality/skill of the riders on view. Scott Nicholls departure has been of severe detriment to the entertainment value on offer so far this year imo. There's only really Bomber and Scott that I have seen pass with any regularity around BP in the middle tier league.

I do accept it, I have no choice other than to I just don't get who decides that we (most teams) aren't going to put our strongest line-up out to try and win the event. We've not even treated it as a development opportunity by sending Chris Harris out and only giving Tom Brennan 1 ride. Is it a matter of the federations are told what the pay rates are for the meeting and then each federation approaches the riders to see which ones will accept the booking?

Why on earth would you sign a rider for £10k, nobody buys riders any more, that's just money going out of the club. Clubs need to be bringing money in. Making and selling your own merchandise shouldn't be astronomical you can get a custom t-shirt done for around a fiver and sell them on for £20, that's a healthy profit by my reckoning. Not to mention exposure for the sponsors and some promotion/publicity as people wear them around the city. You could probably get them done cheaper we do live in a city with many hosiery factory's. Why would a club sub out their merch and have no say in what should be produced and when, perhaps they do have a say in which case Jaybea should be doing more. They even sub out some of their production of team shirts to a Polish company by the looks of it. Why wouldn't you as a club be saying, right we need a load of League Championship merchandise to cash in? I comment as and when I see fit both positive and negative. Just recently I have praised the signing of Ans Andersen, the speed at which some of the matches have been completed and even acknowledged when there have been some good races. In fact I'm the ONLY one on here singing the praises of the club actually winning the bloody LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP... while the rest of you want to keep it a secret!!!!!! I support he club by paying my £17 week in week out, I follow the club away and was there in Glasgow on that historic night... with about 40-50 others. But no, let's keep the double a secret, let's not make any merchandise, let's not promote the club, we don't need any more fans, we've got a nice comfortable amount coming through the turnstiles that does us just nicely thank you very much, even though 75% of the stadium is empty. Everything in the garden is rosy. A lot of the problems I see are sport wide, it just happens that Leicester is the track I go to most often, so it gets mentioned on the Leicester thread. I have criticised the track in the past, as many many people have, I don't think I've ever criticised any of the staff. I will openly admit and it will come as no surprise that I am no track preparation expert, I have never prepared a track in my life... I have though, seen hundreds of Speedway meetings over the years and know what a well prepared Speedway track looks like. We could probably go on for pages discussing track preparation, all I know is from my experience, is that generally what the riders like and what produces good racing for the fans are often 2 very different things, most riders would love a track that enables them to make a start and clear off at the front, why wouldn't they, it's easy money. Imo the track has not been the same since Glyn Taylor's services were dispensed with. I have no idea who does the track now and what their credentials are, where they have come from and how many tracks they had prepared before they came to Leicester. I will continue to make posts, both positive and negative, you may agree or disagree with them, that's fine, it used to be a free world. ATB Iain