Main
I'll have to wait until my brain has had a refresh from my video camera to recall much of the meetting (unless I can steal a repoort from anyone???) so here are the revised tables for now.
***as usual, I welcome any corrections you need me to make!
Now I'm not one to nitpick, but I'm not one to keep my trap shut either. So once again I need to voice (quietly and adfter some deliberation) my disapproval of including "Non-Classified" riders in our matches where they are mingled with the E-V Fraternity (OK to give them their own races, no objection to that, and I appreciate why we would want to). This time it transpired that Mr Geach dropped a point he normally would not have in heat 6 of the Over35/40 match. This did indeed cost him a place in the "A" Finals, and as probably one of the three fastest riders on the day, and certainly the most entertaining to watch, this would have been a crime had he been contesting the overall Grand Prix positions.
That's Numero Uno out of the way.
Next up, gate exclusions. You'll be well aware by now I started a rule change debate on our Facebook page following such an incident in this meeting and I sure hope we can do something to limit the damage. Even those of us who may only turn out once a year are surely entitled to be allowed to compete after potentially travelling the length and breadth of the Country and I'll keep whinging and pressing for change until we make one. I don't want to be the provider of the final decision, but my 2 pen'orth is that the race should be rerun until the Ref is satisfied all was fair, and without exclusion.
Well, "it's all over now" in the words of the Godlike Mick Jagger! The final round of the season at the fantastic Leicester superclub proved to be the decider for five or six of the podium spots and what a cracker it turned out to be, though most unfortunate for the desperately unluck Dave Hemsley who broke his ankle in his second ride. We wish Dave a speedy and complete recovery with no complications. Congratulations to this year's Champions Craig Marchant, Mark Griffiths and Phil Hemming. Midlands Rule Again!
In the event of a points draw in any of the podium positions it is most likely that we will then decide the winner using the following criteria which seems to offer the fairest solution:
.....number of event wins would be first decider, followed by number of seconds, then thirds.
but hey, what do we know?
2015 Tables
***please note - the Adjusted Points and Positions will not display correctly until each rider drops his lowest score at the end of the Series.
I'm grateful to Paddy Wenn, Pete Chant and Steve Hodgkinson for their input and corrections. The important chart is the final one!
Following the Edinburgh result and my ongoing updates I've discovered a slight anomaly, but I'm not sure how much it will affect the overall points situation. This mainly (but not solely) affects those competing in the Over 50s (which almost always includes the Over 60s) and has come about because at a couple of venues this year this group have had four rides in their heats. This means their maximum score is one ride short of those who've only done the five ride matches. It makes no difference to those who made the Finals and scored Final GP points. There's a fair bit of re-jigging to do to see if it does actually have any effect on overall positions, but if it does we may need to start working on race averages rather than points scored in the heats. Watch this space, but not too hard please!
Below are the FINAL 2015 results, hearty congratulations to Over 40s Champion Mark Winwwod, Over 50s Champion Steve Hodgkinson and Over 60s Champion Bob Prince. Well done Birmingham!