Speedway 2005 is nearly upon us!

[BritPete]

Currently there are just the Air Tek trophy matches going on, speedway is not a rich sport, and these meetings are held to provide some money so that all Elite league tracks can have the added saftey of these inflated fences. The league proper gets underway on the 17th, when Ipswich are at home to Belle Vue, then, on the 21st, Belle Vue are at home to Swindon. March the 22nd will be the first live match featured on Skysports, when Arena Essex take on Poole, the following day the Sky cameras will be at Peterborough to cover their clash with Oxford. There have been a lot of changes in the closed season, and some teams are a lot different from last year. Also, there have been some rule changes, the only one of any real interest though is that a team now has to be 9 points behind before they can nominate a rider to go for double points, last year it was 8 points. In reality though, it is 10 points, because it's highly unlikely that a team will find themselves an odd number of points down, unless a race finishes with just two riders, and a point goes "missing" Ten teams will contest the Elite league, current and double league winners Poole have been made the favourites, and do indeed stand a decent chance, Oxford is the team that I like though, there are some fierce arguments going on right now between Oxford and Coventry, Oxford want to use Coventry assets Greg Hancock and Billy Hamill on a loan deal, and Coventry want them to buy the riders. No doubt it will be resolved, and Oxford will get their men. Assuming Oxford do get to use the two Americans, then their team will look useful, Neils Kristian Iversen looks a good prospect, and he is sure to improve on last year. The key rider is going to be Lukas Dryml, he returns to Oxford, the very track that he first rode for. A couple of years though he was involved in a very nasty accident in the GP series, and he has not been quite the same rider since, he did show flashes of his old form last season though, and the move to Oxford may just be the move he needs, if so Oxford could be THE team to beat. Ipswich and Wolverhampton look to be the weakest teams, closely followed by Peterborough and Arena Essex, Arena do have the added advantage of a very tricky home track though, and a team full of track specialists. Belle Vue look to me to be the third best team, (or better) and in a recent open meeting the home riders completely dominated. It was not that strong a line up, but veterans Joe Screen and Jason Lyons did impress, with world champ Jason Crump taking the honours. That leaves Eastbourne, Coventry and Swindon. Coventry are a lot better than last year, and will be battling hard for a place in the play-offs, Swindon have been badly let down late in the day by Swedish rider Peter Ljung, leaving them with very few options, and Oxford's unrequired Jonas Davidsson has been signed, this does make them weaker, but, they do have a decent top three. Eastbourne have a strong top two, with Adam Shields to back them up, but, they do look to have a long tail. All in all I think there will be an interesting season ahead, a battle for the top spot between Oxford and Poole, Belle Vue, Coventry and Swindon fighting for the play-offs, with Eastbourne,Peterborough and Arena stuck in the middle, and Ipswich and Wolverhampton trying to avoid the wooden spoon. League handicap betting has been made much harder these days, and you may as well toss a coin for some of them, also the double point rides can make a result more difficult to predict, hopefuly though a few winners can be found, the bookies still do not understand all aspects of the sport, and it is a question of finding an advantage. I know that there are some speedway fans on here, maybe we could open a thread about the up and coming matches. Just a thought.

[Tulenos]

Re: Speedway 2005 is nearly upon us! Nice to see you in Other sports again, Pete, and looking forward to some informed previews of yours;)