Orson Welles

I've just turned the volume down, as I can no longer stand the stream of inanities coming from the mouths of Pearson and his cronies. I'm coming to the conclusion that (with the honorable exceptions of Chris Louis and Sam Ermolenko) Sky's commentary team largely regards the sport as a joke. I'm really not enjoying this GP. The results are so random; there's no pattern at all.

Good looking spreadsheet - many thanks!

Wow! That's a really nice scorecard. I've always used the page in the Speedway Star before to fill in scores, but this is much better. Many thanks!

Can someone please confirm if it's on the red button on Sky Sports 1 from 6pm? I'm not sure if anyone's done this yet on this thread...

Really glad I went to this meeting rather than sitting at home watching it. There was great, edge-of-the-seat racing throughout, and the atmosphere in the Showground was as good as I've ever seen it. The British team was experimental, and I was disappointed with many of the riders, though surely the point was that this is all about giving young riders experience that will help them grow as riders. Still, good to see that Danny King remembered where the racing lines were. Exhilarating meeting. Pity about the security at the end, though...

Bright sunshine now over the Showground, and barely a cloud in the sky! It's beginning to look good.

I live in Orton Brimbles, about 1 mile away from the Showground. We've just had a really heavy shower, but the good news is that it passed over quickly. So long as we don't get any more heavy rain, I would have thought the meeting will go ahead.

On the other hand, look at Leigh Adams. Also disqualified in controversial circumstances, he was interviewed afterwards and his comments were along the lines of 'that's the way the referee saw it, I've just got to get on the rest of the meeting'. It really put Nicki P's petulant outburst into context. But then, I'm obviously forgetting that nothing is ever Pedersen's fault and the whole Grand Prix is just a giant conspiracy aimed at him. Maybe Ole Olsen should just cancel the rest of the series right now and award the title to Pedersen. Maybe that would calm him down...

Actually, it is a decent question to ask how Millard got the job in the first place. He really is quite clueless - I remember last night getting really confused while filling in my race card when Millard announced that AJ had both won the heat, and finished third! Maybe this was a result of some quirk of quantum physics... To recover from an evening's SGP 'entertainment' spent in Millard's annoying company, I like a bit of football. If I'm not a game on Saturday afternoon, I like to watch Jeff Stelling's Soccer Saturday show on Sky. By and large, this show is an example of how to do sports programming; the host is witty, the contributors are knowledgable and everyone is passionate. Just one problem; at some point, Stelling will come up with those dread words: "...and now, with the latest news from Carrow Road, here's Tony Millard!". At that point, I start throwing popcorn at my TV screen. Actually, during his football reports, it would be interesting to see what would happen if one of the teams Millard was watching included an Australian player born in Mildura. He'd probably explode, particularly if the player was only 19 years of age!

My prediction: Andersen Pedersen Crump Adams Gollob Hancock Jonsson Bjerre Saifudtinov Lindgren Nicholls Walasek Harris Ulamek I don't think anyone can argue that the GP competition is stagnating, and I think it will be a battle of the two top Danes. I suspect that Hans will finally have the consistency this year to challenge Nicki, but it will be close. I think that elsewhere the interest will be to see how the new boys fare. A fully-fit Bjerre could improve his form (which, in 2008, was solid rather than spectacular at EL level) and cause a few surprises, and I'll be watching Saifudtinov with interest. I fear he may have entered GPs a season too early, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt in my rating. Of course, we need more new blood, and we can only hope that the likes of Holder (next season?), Pavlic and Woffinden will be able to provide it in time.

I was ready to start throwing things at the screen during heat 20 - Millard continued to believe that Bjarne was leading the race even after Kevin Tatum had pointed out that Iversen was at the front! I mean, how difficult is this - you've got only four riders, all easily identifiable by their colour-coded helmets. And still Millard screws up time and again. Would a football commentator who consistently referred to Rooney as 'Ronaldo' stay in his job? Of course not. On the other hand, your idea of giving him his own show is inspired. I can see it now - Millard's Wide World of Sports; everything from beach volleyball to downhill skiing, all accompanied by hideously inaccurate commentary from someone who just hollers inanities when he can't thing of anything to say. Which is most of the time. I'd watch it! Back to the GP - yes, the shower ruined it as a spectacle ultimately, but before that there was some cracking racing. As a Hans Andersen fan I was delighted to see the Dane (note to Millard - he's a speedway rider, not a writer of fairy tales) working the outside gates as well as anyone after he screwed up his only gate 1 ride. Certainly, Andersen's overtaking manoeuvre on lap 1 of heat 10 (an outrageous cutback that almost took two places at once) was the highlight of the meeting. After the shower, it was all about gate 1, unfortunately. Congratulations to Gollob, though - he had advantages due to gate positions, but made the most of it and held off Nicki well in the final. I've got a good feeling about this GP series. I think we'll see lots of surprises