Workington Comets set for new-look Premier League

By John Walsh

Last updated 12:37, Wednesday, 19 November 2008

The Premier League of British speedway will have at least 14 teams competing in the 2009 season.

The successful takeovers of Berwick, Redcar and Newport were all confirmed just before the annual BSPA conference in Spain, held over the week-end.

The door has also been left open until January 1 for a new club from the south of England to join subject to planning approval.

The main talking points will be the decision to increase the team building average by a full one point to 42.50; a new points scoring system covering home and away matches and the decision to introduce a tactical gate rule.

Workington Comets were very much in favour of the increased average but owner Keith Denham and Ian Thomas are still mulling over the merits of the new scoring system.

Last year, in an attempt to encourage teams to be built with more strength away from home and create more exciting matches, the aggregate bonus point was dropped in favour of rewarding teams with three league points instead of two for winning an away match.

This worked well to an extent but was not perfect - some matches were still dead and buried by heat seven or eight, and teams simply gave up because there was no aggregate point to worry about or race for.

This has been addressed with a league scoring system now in place that will reward a team for even getting within six points of the home team.

In theory, this now means that even a team that is losing a meeting by 18 points with only three races left can still turn the meeting around and salvage a league point. They could do this, for example, by using a tactical ride in Heat 13 and gaining a maximum seven-point heat advantage followed by two four-point heat advantages in Heats 14 and 15.

To counteract this, the home team will gain an extra league point if they can win the meeting by more than six points. A draw will simply give the home team a single point - but the away team will get two.

The ‘Tactical Substitute’ rule which allowed a rider to come into a race from a 15-metre handicap and score double points has now been scrapped.

This has been replaced in favour of the more simple ‘Tactical Ride’ rule which can now be used for a second time, but only when a team is 12 points or more behind their opponents. There’s also a revolutionary new ‘Tactical Gates’ system for trial in this years KO Cup competition.

This gives the losing team the chance to select their gate positions on two separate occasions if they are behind by six points or more.

It will be run in addition to the Tactical Ride rule but cannot be used at the same time.