Ipswich ‘Witches’ vs King’s Lynn ‘Stars’ - Monday 5th May

[KevtheRev]

20 minutes ago, dontforgetthefueltapsbruv said:

 

 

 

Seems like the process is seen as more important than the purpose - which is rarely a recipe for success

Unfortunately, you have to think of the worst situation, so for example, the home team are losing and decide to over water the track after every race to try to hamper the away team. By having scheduled times it restricts the work that can be performed.

[Bald Bloke]

5 hours ago, cowboy cookie returns? said:

To be honest Boughen looked broken yesterday. Gave up at the back & then walked back to the pits head down….looks like he has had enough. 
Remember him beating either Emil or Doyle around Foxhall before, certainly a shadow of what he was a year or so ago.

It's a shame, but Ashton had this shutting off when things got close a lot last season as well. Obviously he and his team know the problem, and must be trying to fix it. But as i posted back in October, if he can't fix it himself, a sports psychologist might be worth a try. In his last home meeting, he won 2 races, and was buzzing  going back to the pits. But he did run 2 lasts... He also was at the Young Stars meeting last week, so i think he still loves the sport, but is a young man very frustrated with himself at times. The longer this goes on, the harder it's going to be to overcome it. I don't like to drop a young local lad, but maybe stepping down from the Prem, and doing the Champ and NDL might help him re gain his confidence.

[Trees]

Ashton should try changing his engine tuner first, go back to Michael Lee!  Who is he currently with?

[Roger Jacobs]

9 hours ago, bigcatdiary said:

It was the gaps after the crashes where the track was lost, it dried it our very quickly but the root cause was not enough water was put into the track in the previous 24 hours, basically it wasn’t prepared properly and the mini crop sprayer Ipswich use between heats just kept the dust down for the first heat after it was done after that it was dust dust and more dust, I appreciate you couldn’t water the super slick inside but it was very noticeable that Doyle and Sayfutdinov were using the outside lines from heat 8 onwards and looked untouchable.

The problem is most tracks subscribe to this standard of track prep and in really hot weather (especially midday and afternoon meetings) you get really caught out if you haven’t watered it enough prior to the day of the meeting.

Not making excuses, but the area has been incredibly dry for weeks, and summer-time hot for several days - plus the dreaded wind that impacts the exposed Heath.

There are photos of the track surface prior to the match on the Facebook page.

As for delays after crashes, the Regs have always stated that the track cannot be touched before a restart or rerun - although I think there’s a proviso that remedial work can be carried out of the track is deemed to be at fault for the incident.

[foreverblue]

3 hours ago, Trees said:

Ashton should try changing his engine tuner first, go back to Michael Lee!  Who is he currently with?

its not his engine that needs tuning.

[SPEEDY69]

29 minutes ago, Roger Jacobs said:

Not making excuses, but the area has been incredibly dry for weeks, and summer-time hot for several days - plus the dreaded wind that impacts the exposed Heath.

There are photos of the track surface prior to the match on the Facebook page.

As for delays after crashes, the Regs have always stated that the track cannot be touched before a restart or rerun - although I think there’s a proviso that remedial work can be carried out of the track is deemed to be at fault for the incident.

There should be room for common sense and the impact on entertainment. 

[Roger Jacobs]

14 minutes ago, SPEEDY69 said:

There should be room for common sense and the impact on entertainment. 

ANY impact on entertainment hasn’t been a factor for as long as I can recall.

[ShanoXtra]

People do love a moan. The track wasn’t perfect but neither is any. Yes it was dry, but so is every other Polish track when it kicks up dust in the summer. I saw comments about how British riders needs to learn from Gorzów vs Falubaz at the weekend as it was soaking wet but they still rode, now we have a dry track and people moan…professionals still know how to ride it and as for entertainment, it was entertaining, Lynn would have been happy with the track if they won, but they fell off and got beat. Deal with it.

[Trees]

1 hour ago, foreverblue said:

its not his engine that needs tuning.

What do you know about him?

[Trees]

58 minutes ago, ShanoXtra said:

People do love a moan. The track wasn’t perfect but neither is any. Yes it was dry, but so is every other Polish track when it kicks up dust in the summer. I saw comments about how British riders needs to learn from Gorzów vs Falubaz at the weekend as it was soaking wet but they still rode, now we have a dry track and people moan…professionals still know how to ride it and as for entertainment, it was entertaining, Lynn would have been happy with the track if they won, but they fell off and got beat. Deal with it.

It was shocking 2nd half with a blue groove and literally clouds of dust!  They didn't attempt to save it getting like that so come off it!

[BluPanther]

22 minutes ago, Trees said:

What do you know about him?

As they say in the trade, he's lost his bottle. It remains to be seen if its short or long term...

[foreverblue]

2 hours ago, Trees said:

What do you know about him?

Not much, I don't know him personally  but it appears the problem is not his machinery.  I wish him all the best and hope he overcomes it as he has the talent to go a long way in the sport.

[szkocjasid]

5 hours ago, SPEEDY69 said:

There should be room for common sense and the impact on entertainment. 

100% agree

Would be a typical Speedway rule, if a club wanted to improve the track during a delay, for the benefit of the fans in attendance, only to be told it has to be left as it is.

Edited 15 hours ago by szkocjasid

[ouch]

18 hours ago, hasta la vista said:

This was intentional. They stopped watering the starts as requested by the home team. When this happened they started making gates and KL riders lost the set up completely and got smashed in the 2nd half of the meeting.

Home team got to do what it needs to win.

To be honest I didn’t expect Ipswich to do what they did with the track to enable them to win. I thought they were better than that, in every sense of the word. 

[Steve Irving]

19 hours ago, hasta la vista said:

This was intentional. They stopped watering the starts as requested by the home team. When this happened they started making gates and KL riders lost the set up completely and got smashed in the 2nd half of the meeting.

Home team got to do what it needs to win.

And you know this how? Was it from the same source that told you a 2024 Ipswich rider was “guesting” for Kings Lynn in this fixture?

Edited 7 hours ago by Steve Irving

[mikebv]

14 hours ago, SPEEDY69 said:

There should be room for common sense and the impact on entertainment. 

Promoters want home wins as that keeps their crowds...

Entertainment is very much a secondary (if that high), factor...

[MP78]

I've always tried to be optimistic about speedway in the UK despite the many challenges the sport faces, but after watching Monday's meeting, I felt like I had shelled out almost £30 (took my son and got a programme) and got a very poor spectacle in return.  

For the casual fan who attended because it was a bank holiday meeting, I would not be surprised if the vast majority of them do not return, which is sadly an opportunity lost. 

Yes the diehards will remain and Ipswich are very lucky to have the fan base they do, but if this is the case at other tracks (which I think we know it is), then the sport will continue to rapidly decline.  

I enjoy going to speedway first and foremost for the racing and the thrill of it all... but I also go for the sounds, the smell, and the memories of going as a youngster.  The casual fan won't necessarily have any interest in the sounds, smell and memories, so you have got to hook them in with the racing and the thrill of it.... I just hope that Ipswich's attempt to dominate the sport this year doesn't inadvertently create an inferior product which not only switches off the new/casual fans, but also the existing fans too.  

[Bagpuss]

16 hours ago, ShanoXtra said:

Deal with it.

I don't think anyone from Lynn has blamed the track for the defeat, if anything it helped us get a very respectable score considering Ipswich's power this year. But those who paid for an afternoon's racing and got a blue groove are perfectly entitled to criticise from a VFM point of view. It's unusual for Foxhall and there were obviously meteorological reasons for it so hopefully lessons will have been learned. Telling people to deal with it doesn't really help anyone going forward. 

[KevtheRev]

The track caught Ipswich out, so definitely wasn't setup for them, any talk of such makes no sense.

I think the track staff just simply messed up.

[Bald Bloke]

33 minutes ago, KevtheRev said:

The track caught Ipswich out, so definitely wasn't setup for them, any talk of such makes no sense.

I think the track staff just simply messed up.

That's about it.. Terrible prep, that hindered Ippo.

Edited 1 hour ago by Bald Bloke