Wackie

I think Efkins and Gjedde would be high on most Reading fans lists!

RIP Alf, another great character of the sport lost

Only heard of this sad news yesterday R.I.P Dougie, a lovely man well thought of by all at Reading.

Poole maybe favourites, but the Brummies have a far superior team manager who'll get the absolute best out of his team. Got to be worth an extra 6-8 points over the course of th 2 meetings.

Well, not a Swindon fan, and even less of a Poole fan, but that was a fantastic meeting - thank god Lakeside didn't make the playoffs in the end! Bring on the final and Wizzers army

I think the heat 2 crash and seeing Gollob laying there motionless took the shine off the meeting for me. That and the constant banging on about Tai from the commentary duo. Personally, I don't think any of the temp tracks make for good meetings and last nights was anything but a "thiller". People rave about Cardiff, but it's the atmosphere not the actual racing that's good. The racing at Stockholm last night was better than that served up at Cardiff this year, but IMO not a patch on the majority of the GP's this season. Really hope the news on Gollob is more positive than some reports are suggesting. Whilst 2013 hasn't been a vintage year for him, he's still brings a lot to the GP's. Hopefully he'll be fit enough to accept a WC next year.

I'm going to have to watch the meeting back again, maybe I missed something first time round but I just don't get the gushing posts about what a brilliant meeting with great racing it was. :/ Whilst the stadiums maybe fantastic, these temporary tracks just don't seem big enough to state GP racing, and have caused far too many injuries this season.

These semi final meetings could just be the financial lifeline that Swindon need. Why have Swindon chosen to have the first leg at home? Maybe Ford told them too!

Shaun was never going to win that final although Per and Shaun did have a fantastic battle in heat 16 in which Shaun came out the victor. I recall an interview where before the run-off Shaun was quoted as saying something along the lines of "well at worst, I'll get silver". Per on the other hand didn't contemplate anything other than gold, and even when asked before the meeting started who was going to win, he simply replied "Per Jonsson"

Thanks for that Bluejam. Brings back many good memories, It's upsetting to hear that he continues to have problems following his awful crash, but I hope Per knows just how well thought of he still is with speedway fans in the UK. Per was on fire the year of his accident and although you can't ever be certain he would have been a favourite to take his 2nd world title that year, and with his consistency he'd of been up there challenging in the early years of the GP's too. It's 20 years next June since the sport was robbed of his talent, would be nice if a benefit type meeting could be staged for him again somewhere next year. He's also still thought of very highly by many of the current crop of top riders, I'm sure someone, somewhere could pull together a fantastic line up for a 1 off meeting for him.

Your memory does indeed serve you right Abs. A track record of 58.1 seconds which stood for the following 21 years until Smallmead closed. I think in all those years only AJ and maybe Rico got close to it.

But for the cruel injuries Per would most certainly have gone on and achieved so much more, especially with the onset of the GP's. But, The Doc is right, the 1990 World Final has got to be my most favourite speedway meeting too. It may have gone to a run-off, but there was no way Per was going to lose that race. Just Per-fect!

Speedway riders are a tough breed, fingers crossed for a quick and full recovery. The speedway family are all cheering you on Ricky!

Does Ole or a member of his family own a printing business???

Fantastic meeting, some great racing from both teams, but well done Monarchs on pulling back those 8 points and taking the win. Follow that Poole!

SWC will be shown on Eurosport - wish I'd have looked into the Eurosport player before re-instating my Sky subscription in April. Still they kept begging us to come back and at 50% off for 12 months I guess the deal's not too bad. Won't pay for a Sky Sports package though - can afford to, but for EL meetings only, and the odd F1 race that isn't live on the Beeb I don't consider this value for money, so make do with the 'Pikey' versions instead..... when I can be bothered.

Why thank you I could have used BV as an example in light of their recent faux pas I suppose. But seeing you are a Poole fan, and after cancelling a meeting due to a rider being missing and watching the diabolical EL meeting shown recently on Sky, I thought I'd use Poole as an example instead. But OK, I'll summarise, the BSPA members have probably turned more people away from the sport in the past 3 years than Eurosports coverage could do in a century. Better??? I still think you're on the wind up in any case. Speedway will now be shown in over 50 countries - it'll reach a bigger TV audience than ever before. Do you honestly believe that because the sound from the track isn't as loud as it is on Sky it'll put people off the sport?

You watch Ski Jumping on TV, yet you could only stand to watch 20 minutes of the speedway coverage last night! Please tell me you're on the wind up. You're a Poole fan, and you think Eurosport speedway coverage is going to turn people away from the sport!!!! You're promoter has done more damage to British Speedway in the past few years than Eurosport could do in a century. You watch Ski Jumping on TV, yet you could only stand to watch 20 minutes of the speedway coverage last night! Please tell me you're on the wind up. You're a Poole fan, and you think Eurosport speedway coverage is going to turn people away from the sport!!!! You're promoter has done more damage to British Speedway in the past few years than Eurosport could do in a century.

So the speedway started late due to the live tennis which ran over. Eurosport International's policy is not to cut short live coverage which has over run and they did push back the start time of the speedway so TV viewers missed as little as possible. Did Eurosport cut short the Cardiff coverage last weekend when it ran over? NO Would Sky have shown this meeting? NO Are you paying an extra £20+ a month specifically to watch GP/SWC racing? NO FFS some people really need to get a grip. I would imagine that those who are slating Eurosport have not really watched it much before. It's not all singing, all dancing with bells on type coverage like Sky produce. But they do develop their coverage of sports they show and have done a fantastic job with the motor sports they show. They don't single out riders as god-like heros and then constantly rave on about these to the detriment of any other competitor taking part, but provide generally non-biased and informative coverage, and generally do a bloody good job of it.

I guess it's all down to personal taste, but I prefer to see a world champion who has earned that title riding against the best there is. The qualifying system for the old 1 off's with a certain amount of riders coming from the continental & intercontinental finals never provided finals which showcased all the best riders in the world at that time. In the past 40 years the continental final has provided 2 world champions - you may call them surprise winners, but both were flukes in my eyes, and what maybe 1 or 2 at most other medalists? People look back at the 1 off world finals (and I have some fantastic memories from some of them) with their rose tinted glasses, but the qualification for them was flawed in respect of quite a few duffers qualifying through the continental final who really didn't deserve to be there. I think this was addressed slightly in the last couple of years of the 1 offs with 2 semi finals being introduced to determine the world finalists, and I can only think of Thomas Gollob and maybe Armando Castagna from the continental rounds who qualified from these. It's been a while, doesn't do any harm to throw the dinosaurs the odd bone now & then.

Actually the GP's are more of a world championship than the 1 off world finals ever were. I went to quite a number of world finals between '78 and '94 and saw some right duffers riding in them who literally really were just making up the numbers. Rather than a world title being decided on chance or an act of fate we really do get a genuine deserved world champion. I'm not saying none of the riders who won world titles prior to 95 weren't deserving, but there were more than a few that were 'flukes'. Speedway Grand Prix still has an element of qualification, which is more than F1, MotoGP, WSB etc.have, but you wouldn't say that the likes of Alonson, Vettel, Rossi, Lorenzo, Fogarty or Bayliss weren't worthy world champions because they didn't qualify for their respective sports championship rounds, Each of them fought tooth & nail to lift their world title trophy, just as the speedway world champions since 1995 have.

I'd stick Artem in. He might not have as much experience as his older brother, but has more longevity ahead of him in the series.

But you can't go giving out WC's on whats happened in the past, otherwise why not Harris too? He's won a GP! Lindback is too much of a confidence rider, which is something he's lacking again this year. He was beyond awful at Cardiff and was pitiful to watch. Unless he qualifies by right through the challenge he doesn't deserve a WC on his past performances. Looks to me at the moment like he needs to sort his head out again and there are better riders outside of the GP than him presently.

Take this years GP line up, omit Jonsson & Lindback and add MJJ, & Laguta and i I'd say we'd be in for another fantastic GP season.

Eurosport love bike racing. They show hours and hours of coverage of British Super Bikes, World Super Bikes and Moto GP. They are THE channel for bike racing and having speedway now on Eurosport is probably one of the best things that could happen for speedway. It's going to hit a more targetted audience than it ever did on Sky. Speedway GP's fall, at the moment, the same weekends as Moto GP's which has a massive TV audience. Unfortunately Eurosport don't have the rights to show the main MotoGP race live, so are showing the previous evenings Speedway GP in the gap between Moto2 finishing and them being able to show their MotoGP coverage.