Invicta Informant

Who else thought the end of the Super Bowl was anti-climactic?

It feels a shame that such tight contest was spoilt by poor officiating. And the NFL are not the only major sports league to suffer from this. There have been many similar complaints about the officials in the NBA, MLB, the English Premier League, etc. hovering around for some time now.

There is always the XFL and the USFL returning soon (this weekend and mid-April respectively) for those who can't wait for the NFL to return in early September.

The WRC recently had its second round in Sweden, with Ott Tanak winning the event for M-Sport Ford, with Hyundai's Craig Breen and Thierry Neuville making up the rest of the podium. The next round is in Mexico on 16th-19th March.

23 hours ago, ColinW said:

There are engineering works taking place between Chislehurst and Sevenoaks, so there will be diversions in place on journeys.

I believe this diversion will take you via St. Mary Cray, Swanley, Eynsford, Shoreham, Otford, and Bat & Ball.

11 hours ago, BachelorBoy said:

Nationalisation. The creation of a Heritage Railway Executive to run them, and plan for the future.

Not a bad idea in itself. I was thinking perhaps the formation of a National Trust or English Heritage style federated organisation to manage a number of railways. With membership to said organisation offering limited free tickets and/or discounted rates of travel to the railways that are part of it.

Super Bowl LVII will be between the two No. 1 seeds, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, at the State Farm Stadium (home of the Arizona Cardinals) in Glendale, Arizona.

Kick-off is scheduled for 4:30pm Mountain Time on Sunday 12th February.

Rihanna is due to perform at the Halftime Show.

We have a new 'Major' winner in Chris Dobey, who defeated Rob Cross 11-7 to win the Masters.

The eight-player field for the Premier League has been confirmed: Michael Smith, Peter Wright, Michael van Gerwen, Gerwyn Price, Jonny Clayton, Nathan Aspinall, Dimitri van den Bergh, and Chris Dobey.

The format is the same as last year, with each evening being a straight knock-out mini-tournament between the eight players, with all matches being the best of 11/first to 6 legs. I personally dislike it. I much prefer the 10 player format, whereby everyone plays each other once (over the best of 14 legs) in the first nine weeks, with the bottom two players in the league being eliminated after Week 9. After that, the remaining eight players playing each other once more before Play-Off Night, which the top four players in the league progress to (in a 1st or 4th Vs 2nd or 3rd scenario).

SP Rail has uploaded his footage of the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO-Psy3peLU

And so too has ba14eagle over two parts:

The 24 Hours of Daytona was won by the car won started on Pole, the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06, driven by Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud. The other Acura (which is a brand of Honda's) run by Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport came second driven by Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, Louis Deletraz and Brendon Hartley.

The Cadillacs run by Chip Ganassi Racing came third and fourth, but on the lead lap. The top four completed 783 laps around the road course circuit at Daytona. Imagine what mileage they would put up if there was less cautions, yellow flags or safety car periods. The victory margin in the LMP2 Class was 0.016 seconds! And a Aston Martin took honours in one of the GT classes.

I say the weekend was a success. Thank you very much to everyone who attended.

Peter Capon's WW1-themed OO9 layout Somewhere in France won the Bill Murphy Memorial Shield for Best in Show, and Steve Moor's Irish 3mm scale layout Ballyconnell Road won the John Muskett Memorial Shield for Visitors' Choice.

Please leave any feedback about the show on this thread, and we will see what we can improve for next time (provisional date being the weekend of 27th & 28th January 2024).

Today has gone better than I thought it would, despite one or two other things happening on-site today that we were not told until Friday once we were there. A modern single decker bus, provided by Go Coach, replaced the Routemaster we were meant to have, as it had broken down. It still nonetheless gave a useful link to and from Longfield station.

I was not sure what visitors numbers would be like after the Covid-enforced absence, but today they were quite solid.

Hopefully it will still be pretty decent tomorrow (weather and visitor attendance).

1 hour ago, warbonnetuk said:

Santa Maria (RhB) loaded up to travel early tomorrow AM. Looking forward to a great show

Santa Maria (RhB) will be Stand No. 51 in the Sports Hall.

Set up this afternoon and evening has gone well. Hopefully we will get a decent turnout for the weekend.

Just a reminder, that we cannot accept card payments on the entry desk.

The nearest ATM is at the Waitrose in Longfield itself.

I think Boston are an under-rated and not fully appreciated band. They are of course known for More Than a Feeling from their eponymous 1976 debut album, but there are other tracks from that album that are pretty good (Smokin' in particularly was infamously used in couple of 2016 episodes of South Park). Plus, I really like their 1986 album Third Stage, especially The Launch which lead right into Cool the Engines.

I can also recommend the Soundtrack album to the cult 1981 movie Heavy Metal, which features songs by Sammy Hagar, Don Felder, Donald Fagen, Stevie Nicks, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Journey, Cheap Trick, and Nazareth.

All set to go for the weekend. Hopefully it will be a good turnout, bearing in mind our last show was three years ago.

We are the only event happening on-site for the weekend. I and the club's Secretary, Clive, shall be marshalling the car park along with a few members of the Dartford Cambria Sea Scouts.

A few of our members are exhibiting their own layouts (Bletchinghurst, Crumbling Edge, Quarry Falls, and Scrapworth End), plus our new under construction American HO club layout, Vine Street Riverside, is making its debut.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans this year is on the weekend of 10th-11th June.

The top class Hypercar category will likely feature entries from Toyota, Peugeot, Ferrari, Porsche, Cadillac, Glickenhaus, and Vanwall. There will still be LMP2 and GTE AM entries (no GTE PRO). The GT2 cars that have raced in both GTE categories at Le Mans and in the WEC will be replaced in 2024 onwards by GT3-spec machinery, which race in the IMSA and in many other series and at certain endurance races where it is the main category (e.g. the 24 Hour races at Spa and the full-length Nürburgring).

Other championship start dates:

BTCC: 23rd April at Donington Park.

Australian Supercars: 10th-12th March with street races in Newcastle, New South Wales. The Bathurst 1000 is on 5th-8th October.

WEC: 17th March with the 1,000 Miles of Sebring.

NASCAR Cup Series: 19th February with the Daytona 500.

IndyCar: 5th March with a street race in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Indy 500 is on 28th May.

World Rallycross: 17th-18th June in Hell, Norway.

MotoGP: 26th March at Algarve International/Portimão Circuit.

World Superbikes: 25th-26th February at Phillip Island.

British Superbikes: 8th-9th April at Silverstone.

Speedway Grand Prix: 29th April in Croatia.

Earlier this month the Dakar Rally took place in Saudi Arabia. The cult rally raid event is organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation, who are probably better known for organising the Tour de France and other cycling events. The winner in the Cars category was Nasser Al-Attiyah, with Sebastien Loeb second. Carlos Sainz Sr. was another notable entrant, but he forced to retire. Other classes where Trucks, Bikes, Quads, Side-by-Side Vehicles (SSVs), Light Prototypes, and Classics.

As a thread for motor racing outside of Formula 1 for 2023 has not yet been started, I thought it was time to do so.

The first round of the World Rally Championship, the Monte Carlo Rally, took place last week (19th-22nd January), with Sebastien Ogier winning the event for Toyota, with defending WRC champion Kalle Rovanpera finishing second. Elfyn Evans was the top Brit finishing fourth.

This weekend (28th-29th January) is the 24 Hours of Daytona, the first round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship and part of the informal 'Triple Crown' of endurance racing (along with the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring). Tom Blomqvist has bagged the Pole Position for the race in the Acura ARX-06 run by Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian that he is co-driving with Colin Braun, Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud.

4 hours ago, D860 VICTORIOUS said:

Did anyone find their enjoyment of the World Cup affected by the use of these "co-commentaters"? Just about all of them couldn't shut up for two minutes, feeling that they they had to fill any silences with their explanations, as if no one watching had any knowledge whatsoever of the game, they bored me senseless so the sound was muted a lot!  Then again, these punters on MOTD and in the papers make a good living doing their level best to over-complicate what is, in essence, a fairly simple game.

Rant over!

I agree whole heartedly. Too many of these so-called pundits, commentators, analysers, etc., just like the sound of their own voice. Many of them just strike me as complete sycophants who hero-worship certain players, who in their eyes can do no wrong.

To catch up on the 'World Series' events, the Bahrain Darts Masters was won by new-crowned World Champion Michael Smith, while the Nordic Darts Masters was won by Peter Wright. The next tournament on TV is the Masters on 27th-29th January. Joe Cullen is the defending champion of this event. Those ranked between 9th and 24th enter at the first round and the winners face the top 8 in the second round.

The draw looks like this:

(1) Michael Smith Vs (16) Damon Heta/(17) Ross Smith
(8) Danny Noppert Vs (9) Nathan Aspinall/(24) Stephen Bunting
(4) Gerwyn Price Vs (13) Dirk van Duijvenbode/(20) Krzysztof Ratajski
(5) Luke Humphries Vs (12) Joe Cullen/(21) Chris Dobey
(2) Peter Wright Vs (15) Ryan Searle/(18) Dave Chisnall
(7) Jonny Clayton Vs (10) James Wade/(23) Callan Rydz
(3) Michael van Gerwen Vs (14) Jose de Sousa/(19) Gabriel Clemens
(6) Rob Cross Vs (11) Dimitri Van den Bergh/(22) Gary Anderson

The layout Trinity Dock Bridge Street, which would have been Stand No. 22, has had to withdraw from the exhibition.

Looking at the NFL Playoffs, the home field team is determined by seeding number, as the NFL does not use a fixed bracket system. The lowest ranked seed after the Wild Card playoff round will play the No. 1 seeds (Kansas or Philadelphia) in the Divisional playoff round.

AFC:

(5) Los Angeles Chargers at (4) Jacksonville Jaguars

(7) Miami Dolphins at (2) Buffalo Bills

(6) Baltimore Ravens at (3) Cincinnati Bengals

NFC:

(5) Dallas Cowboys at (4) Tampa Bay Buccaneers

(7) Seattle Seahawks at (2) San Francisco 49ers

(6) New York Giants at (3) Minnesota Vikings

The Divisional group winners always play at home, which is why the NFC South winners Tampa Bay with a losing regular season record of 8-9 are hosting Dallas who have regular season record of 12-5.

The PDC's 'World Series of Darts' events starts today (12th January) with the Bahrain Darts Masters and concludes tomorrow. Coverage is on ITV4. This tournament features 8 of the top names in the PDC against 2 local qualifiers and 6 Asian representatives (including the legendary Paul Lim).

There is another 'World Series' event next weekend (20th & 21st January), the Nordic Darts Masters, in Copenhagen. The next 'Major' is the Masters from Milton Keynes on 27th-29th January. Coverage of both tournaments are on ITV4.

The Premier League begins on 2nd February in Belfast and will run every Thursday night (visiting Cardiff, Glasgow, Dublin, Exeter, Liverpool, Nottingham, Newcastle, Berlin, Birmingham, Brighton, Rotterdam, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, and Aberdeen) until the Play-Off Night on 25th May at the O2 Arena in London. Coverage on Sky Sports.

The 'other' World Darts Championship at Lakeside, which traditionally takes places at this time of year, has been moved to the beginning of December, so it would not clash with the PDC's Qualifying School (happening right now) and for it to be the end of season event for the World Darts Federation.

The webpage for the Exhibition has been updated with the Stand Numbers and Locations within the Academy.

On 10/11/2022 at 15:17, ColinW said:

I will be there assisting on Strood Dock.

 

Colin

Strood Dock is Stand No. 62 in the Sports Hall.

On 04/01/2023 at 11:46, Sir Roland Matthews said:

I look forward to attending with On The Rails - it will be the first time we have attended a Model Railway Exhibition and our first event of 2023!

On The Rails is Stand No. 41 also in the Sports Hall.

Donations to the toy drive Damar Hamlin launched in 2020 has raised over $5.6 million since his horrific collapse on the field. Like with what happened to Christian Eriksen and Fabrice Muamba, I sincerely hope Hamlin makes a full recovery.

Michael Smith wins the World Championship with a 7 sets to 4 victory over Michael van Gerwen and becomes the new World No. 1 in the process. Plus this happened:

The World Championship final is tonight (Tuesday 3rd). Michael Smith Vs Michael van Gerwen. Whoever wins becomes the World No. 1 (in the PDC's Order of Merit).

Alongside Sky Sports, I believe there is also radio coverage on talkSPORT.