Soundbites: 3rd July 2006

Louis	Thomas

"It was a relief to finally get a win. It was not the best of performances from certain quarters but I will settle for the two points and the bonus point. We still struggled a little and showed that our confidence is low but hopefully this win will have lifted the team."
Alun Rossiter - Delighted with the Robins win over Eastbourne on Thursday

"He has shown an enormous amount of spirit and he has been on the pace. I think he will be a tremendous crowd-pleaser."
Coventry manager Peter Oakes on Pawel Hlib

"I'm over the moon. The temperature was 28 degrees and it was a dust bowl, but we coped well. To get a draw away from home when your star rider has an off night is a great achievement. Gary looked a down on power. If he had won his first couple of races we would have waltzed it."
Brian Havelock on Redcar's draw at Mildenhall yesterday. Son Gary only scored five.

"I didn't know it was so close but you always have to go out looking for a 5-1, whether you are 30 points ahead or whatever. It was a good job we got that maximum because Coventry got a 5-1 in the last race and we could have lost the match."
Jonas Davidson - He clinched the match for the Pirates in heat 14

"The bike runs fine in the pits, but it just wasn't happening on the track. Then my dad did something to the adjuster on the carb and it was like being on a different bike. I could feel the difference straight away and my confidence was up again. It's so important to have your head right as much as anything else in any meeting and finding that set-up, providing it continues to work, could improve my season."
Stoke's Luke Priest

"I always had faith in the team that we had put together for the Comets this year and although we've had a good start, I honestly believe that we haven't seen the best from the side. I think there's still more to come and that we can improve on what we've achieved so far."
Workington promoter Graham Drury

"It has been a very tough few weeks for me. I have had a lot of problems and just haven't been scoring the points. I could not understand why I have struggled so much because I had been taking extra rides while at reserve and already competing in these races. I have been pretty unlucky as far as mechanical trouble goes. In the last couple of weeks alone I have blown one engine and seized another, and also snapped a chain. Putting things like that right doesn't come cheaply and it is even harder when I am not scoring the points out on the track. It has been an infuriating time but hopefully I have turned the corner now."
Peterborough's Ulrich Ostergaard

"I want to apologise to the Newcastle fans for having to drop out of such an important meeting so early. I thought I could take all four of my rides but I felt my right knee pop at the first bend and there was no way I could continue."
Newcastle's Manu Hauzinger - He had to pull out of the derby clash at Redcar

"It was easily our best performance of the year as we didn't have a last place in any race and that's not an easy feat against a team containing some star names. Altogether, with bonus points, we will be paying our lads for 72 points tonight but would be delighted to do that every meeting as it would mean we would be league champions."
Ian Thomas on Belle Vue's 61-35 win over Wolves

"It was interesting to read in the papers that Peterborough were going to prepare a track with plenty of grip. Grip is not what they produced and I should know, because I have ridden at Ipswich for goodness knows how many years, when years ago there was real grip, not just heavy shale as this was tonight. The track was badly prepared, it's as simple as that and even the home riders were unhappy with it at the start."
Chris Louis on the Peterborough track

"It was a bit embarrassing. I fell on my backside and was struggling to sit on my bike for the rest of the night. It's the first time I've seen Ashfield but it's a nice track although next time I come here I won't be sitting so far back on the bike!"
Newport's Billy Legg after looping at the start at Glasgow

"Joel has had a new lease of life. He has had some new equipment which has given him confidence to try more lines on the track."
Tim Stone on Joel Parsons who scored paid 16 for Newport yesterday

"Home advantage played a massive part, but we have to put our hands up and say we were beaten by two better teams on the day. If we were going to go through the season unbeaten that would have been surprising. But now we have been finally beaten, we have to stay positive. We are still a good side."
Plymouth boss Mike Bowden on their defeats at both Buxton and Stoke yesterday

"Mats said to me I didn't need to do the qualifiers although I told him I wanted to do it. It means I have to finish in the top eight and I will do my best to achieve that."
Antonio Lindback will miss the GP qualifiers on the advice of Swedish manager Mats Olsson

"Clews's return was a real plus in what was quite an encouraging team performance. He got a race win and two second places and though he was tiring, we gave him heat 15 as a show of faith in his ability. We held Newcastle for much of the meeting, but they got two 5-1s in heats 13 and 15 which made the score look a bit worse than it was."
Stoke manager John Adams on their 54-41 defeat at Newcastle last night

"I used my favourite engine from last year. For whatever reason, I haven't been using it. It has been sitting on the workshop floor all season. I put the old one back in and it gave a dream ride. The track was immaculate again and they were good, fun speedway rides."
Adam Shields after a 15 point maximum for Eastbourne at the weekend

"I take it as a compliment that Peterborough feel that they need some extra small track practice so they can give a better account of themselves on Monday. I then thought about the times we have raced at Peterborough recently when the track has resembled a ploughed field. So what better way to practise riding on their track than by using a field which I have organised. And, if Leigh Lanham finds any potatoes in the field, I have given him permission to use them for chips in the family's fish and chip shops."
Ronnie Russell ahead of tonight's Arena v Peterborough clash

This article was first published on 3rd July 2006