gbrussell

I am an Aussie, on tour with the travel plus group taking in both the gp and the u/21 next week. Some of us are a bit bemused by some refereeing decisions last night. Can anyone who watched the tv coverage tell us who was on the button, thanks.

I hope Phillip Rising is right and the results of a massive investigation will be known soon. From where i sitting at the opposite end of the speedway mainstream in Sydney I am fearing another BSI "carpet sweep" similar to Gelsenkirchen 2008. The more that time ticks away with no news the more I think nothing will happen.

For our Aussie viewers I have just found out by doing a search for speedway on my on screen program guide that belle cue v king's Lynn will be on live at 430 am Tuesday 28th. Whether this is a one off or a permanent return is not known. Glenn Russell Sydney Australia

In reality we should be seeing the best 16 riders in the GP field. However that rarely happens because a lot of good riders miss out at the qualifying rounds, while others sneak through the cracks. Remember how Andy Smith seemed to qualify most years albeit he did this legitimately. Also the 4 Wild Cards selected are sometimes based around TV coverage in a certain region and are not necessarily the best 4 who are not already in the series.

61.

Darcy Ward has polarized a lot of people here in Australia, particularly those who like me have put their time into the sport as voluntary track officials at various places, me personally at Gosford and also Somersby junior track. My peronsal opinion is that he has got off lightly. I would also make him earn his way back into the Grand Prix series and NOT give him any wild cards in the meantime. That means he does the 2016 qualifiers and probably gets back in for 2017. However we all suspect that won't happen. His sponsor Monster Energy are no doubt already campaigning for his return via a wildcards in Melbourne which I suspect he will get as he would be a drawcard and they have some pull with BSI for sure. Personally my wc in Melbourne would be a young Aussie on the way up such as 3 times oz under 21 champ Max Fricker who is more local than DW. As for the suspension it is light IMHO. You would think after the episodes in Bournemouth Court Ward and his muddling manager would have steered his ship better. I think he needs to get away from Poole, to come under the wing of someone stronger, but I can't see that happening. He definitely needs someone of the calibre of Peter Adams in his corner. Peter is the best team manager in my lifetime, but would he take on a "problem-child" like DW? More to the point would DW make the move himself to get a stronger manager? I really doubt it. As for getting a wild card at Cardiff that would be ridiculous.

In Australia it is quite common for Junior Motorcycle meetings and Long Track meetings to go over 100 races. I have done commentary at places like Bathurst, Blayney, Somersby all in NSW where close to 130 races have taken place on a day. Sure they are not all speedway races, many are dirt bikes, dirt track sidecars, speedway sidecars, veterans speedway on 2 valve bikes, Harleys etc. The issues raised about Track Preparation by some on this forum are certainly correct. The grader can be going around a track sometimes as big as 800-1000 metres for 20-30 minutes. Dirt bikes with different tyres to speedway often make track prep more difficult. Meetings can take as long as 8 hours.

Problem with tickets has been sorted. biletlugen range me and it was sorted over the phone. Apparently the problem is that their server was not set up to take foreigh ip addresses at the present time. Thanks to all who helped,

Thanks for your help Phillip. Have spoken via email to both Nicola and Gemma at IMG/BSI over the past 24 hours and a solution by booking over the telephone is not far away. Thanks once again. PS My good friend Peter White said to say hello to you. Regards Glenn

I am posting this message seeking help in purchasing Danish Grand Prix Tickets for the 2014 meeting at Parken. It has got to the point where I am quite frustrated at being unable to purchase them on line.. I have had a number of attempts to purchase them on-line, and when it gets to the point where I enter my credit card details, it gives an error message, payment declined by dibs defender. I then decided to ring the Tickets Hotline Number on the GP website at what I believe is after 9am Danish time (7pm here in Australia), only to receive a recorded information message in Danish before the line terminated and I got the engaged signal. Has anyone (particularly In Britain) had this experience and how do you get tickets for Parken, as obviously there are plenty of Brits who go there? Purchasing tickets for a GP should not be this hard. I have emailed Nicola Sands asking her to pass on my email to someone in BSI for assistance, last week, but have not received a reply. If Phillip Rising reads this could you shed any light on this for me please? Any input to help my wife and I purchase tickets would be greatly appreciated.Either reply to this thread or send me an email, to;- Glenn.Russell@sydney.edu.au. Glenn Russell Sydney Australia.

With regard to SGP Wildcards next year I am assuming Chris Holder will be fit for Auckland. We haven't received much news where I live in Sydney as to the likley timeframe for his return to racing. Darcy Ward has 4 GP's to qualify for the top 8 and should do it. Gollob to me this year has looked quite disinterested and it wouldn't surprise me if he pulled the pin at season's end. I think Herbie Hancock might keep going. The Swedes look the ones in trouble. Jonsson can't make the top 8 where he currently sits, Lindback is a bit like Gollob, while Lindgren needs to get a wriggle on and qualify on merit. He has been a seeded rider a few times and like Harris will eventually run out of chances. My picks would be Holder, THJ, MJJ and Vaculik.

my 4 Wildcards would also be Hampel, Vaculik, Ward and Jepsen Jensen. Just got a gut feeling though that one of them may miss out in favour of Woffinden.