IainB

I don't think it really matters what time of year you run it, you're always pretty likely to run into some kind of weather in the UK. But I do think it would be wise to perhaps not run your showpiece event less than 24 hours after such an extraordinary weather event especially with 4 and a half weeks left of the season. That said I know there are TV schedules to be adhered to and if Belle Vue wanted to run to take advantage of their home track then that's fair enough I suppose. Unfortunately that's what you're going to get when you run a cup competition to decide a league title. Personally I didn't enjoy it but that was more to do with the fact that Leicester were pretty crap tbh. I thought the way they were celebrating after the semis that was pretty dangerous and the semi victory was their final. If I took my Lions hat off I could see that it would have been pretty entertaining racing wise, the Aces fans seemed pretty entertained. On to Thursday... £240!!!

I fear the damage may already have been done on Saturday, Sunday & Monday when we had an absolute deluge of rain with proper flooding, it's still not really dried up and more is forecast for Wednesday night, Thursday morning. The only way the track will be in normal condition is if it's worked all day today, tomorrow and covered on Wednesday night.

And don't mention the SoN in July! There's a very high likelihood of the weather effecting the pay offs (semis and/or finals) especially as they're televised and more likely to go ahead come what may. Great for the neutral, not so much if your team is involved as at some tracks it can be quite the leveller where as at others a home track advantage can come into play. Generally I think the more technical the track the more level things tend to get, the bigger less technical tracks tend to favour the home riders when the weather gets bad.

There was a parade, that didn't start until 19:31 and they went for add breaks after heats 4 and 7. Only when it started to rain did they pull their finger out. Fair play to the Aces though, no complaints from me, we were beaten by the far better team on the night. It certainly isn't over yet though (53-37 in April, when Lions were crap & 55-35 in July, you lost Dan though) but it will very much hinge on the condition of the track on Thursday night... it doesn't look good for the Lions though. Don't want to single out any particular rider but Fricke has blown very hot and cold this season, he's failed to reach double figures 11 times and I'm not quite sure he's captain material either.

The only way Leicester pull this back is to get the track covered at Beaumont Park for the rain that is due overnight on Wednesday, the track needs to be as near "normal" as possible or they can forget it.

Shop window stuff from Puk!

Bloody Eurosport, they breezed along like there was absolutely no danger of rain when anybody with access to the Internet could see that it was on its way... then all of a sudden it's an immediate 2 minutes after every heat. It's about time these TV clowns were sent packing!

He got tremendous drive round turns 3 and 4! I hope some of the other Lions were watching it.

Puk's getting carried away he's actually got a crowd cheering for him and he's lapping it up!

Kelv might lose his dirtometer on the outside of this track tonight!

Looking at that I now fancy some chocolate mousse!

You mean LAST timers

And on BSN Greg Blair said that Picko had told him to always stick a microphone under his nose... then, when Abi Stephens does it he turns down the interview.

Every single one of us knows it makes total sense to postpone both pay off meetings until next week... commercially

Betty's HotPot?

What you talking about... they even "invited" Australian Max Fricke to compete in a round of the European Championship! If they want to have a feeder series, you're right, it should be open to all.

A Belle Vue fan as in she doesn't attend for the whole season but turns up at pay off time? 😁

Interesting to listen to the BSN interview with Scott Nicholls after the Oxford vs Scunny match as to why he wasn't there at the CLRC. And despite being tee-ed up to say that he was carrying an injury niggle he instead opted to commendably tell the truth and cited "logistics" as the reason he wasn't there. This brings up a number of questions, assuming "logistics" means that he was in Vojens the previous evening, which he would have known about at the beginning of the season when the GP fixture list was released, then why leave it so late to pull out of the meeting? Scott Nicholls would have been one of the top name draws to the CLRC, a draw that was "confirmed" on the 8th of August! I suspect the whole truth behind these late withdrawals is not always as it seems.

Catering? You worried about what time your tea is being served up? 😂

Typo: commercial : comical 😂

There is only a single reason for pay offs and that is to satisfy the TV companies. The ONLY team sport that is big enough to call the shots to the TV companies is Premier League Football as they know there would be an outcry from the fans if pay offs were to be introduced... just like there is every time they try and introduce a "super league" What these sports have to weigh up is the benefit of the TV contract... in Speedway's case their "broadcast partners" are probably doing more harm than good to the sport for the pittance they pay for it.

I notice you went viral you won't want to interact with the likes of us soon

As somebody who squeezed into Brandon to watch the double header league decider vs Hull & Leicester I can attest that pay offs are not needed to completely fill a speedway stadium

Hopefully next season they'll do away with the wretched things altogether! They've caused nothing but trouble in every league, fixture and rider availability wise, ever since they were introduced. After what has happened this year they've lost any credibility they may of once had.

Will it be another SoN or another Easter Monday?!?