salty

If an official reason was given then I must have missed it. Can't think of a logical reason why Britain wouldn't enter a team, I suspect money would be the root cause and a lack of collective will to look to the future.

Agree that Stekkers came across well. Good analysis of all the racing incidents - big improvement on Kelvin. Two decent races - Heat 14 and the Matej Kus victory. Good to see Crumpy going over to congratulate Kus in the pits afterwards.

Looked like the right decision to call it off as the weather was showing no sign of relenting and conditions had got considerably worse. As usual the authorities are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Hope Crumpy is OK.

I enjoyed reading this last issue. Good to see Shooey looking good and healthy and particularly enjoyed the Rob Henry and Dave Perks articles. I remember Dave starting off in the second halves at Dudley Wood and was there when he made the debut against Glasgow that is mentioned in the article. As well as winning his first race I seem to remember he nearly won another race later in the meeting but packed up on the last lap, which resulted in the Cradley promoter running across the centre green to pat him on the back. One further note regarding this issue - what happened to the Bruce and Simmo columns and the A-Z feature?

Three of their four finished in the top 4 last year and the other, Kolodziej, did enough as a wild card, in the WTC and the GP qualifying to be a pretty unanimous choice as a nominated rider for 2011. Who else would you consider to be worthy of inclusion?

To think Pedersen was so close to not even reaching the semi's. He was on his way out until Kolodziej had that horror smash. Meeting got better after a drab start, but the track was a throwback to the Ole days.

Don't despair mate, always good to hear peoples views on new publications. Out of interest - how many pages is it?

The Illustrated History of Speedway. The Illustrated History of 100+ British Speedway Tracks. Not that much of a coincidence. Definitely not an interesting fact.

It's quoted on post 5. To olddon :- my comment refers to the pointlessness of Speedguy's original post.

It's the same title like the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph used to be. Or all those various dictionary publications that have the word dictionary in them. Typical Speedguy (non) point.

The Illustrated History of Speedway if I remember correctly.

The confirmation that riders were out of pocket for having to ride in last seasons WTC is no great surprise. Coupled with Rob Lyons recent comments and the fact there is no Under 21 team entered for this years World Cup it paints a pretty accurate (and damning) picture of how little support our international riders are given. Little wonder we are continually slipping behind other nations.

About time we had some good news. Hope it all works out for the new promotion.

I would imagine a shoo in for Nielsen, closely followed by Erik. Honourable mentions for Sam, Janno, Tommy K, Jan Andersson, Siggy, Bo, Kai, Armando etc.

Just about sums up the GB mentality. I guess we have always snubbed the European Championships because they impinge on the domestic calendar, but it is such a short sighted policy.

As we were in the Final last year I would expect us to have been seeded to one of the semi's. If we had got through to the Final then we would have had a full 3 months to organise paperwork and logistics for getting a team to Russia for the Final. It will be interesting to see what the other 3 countries in the Final manage to do. How are our youngsters ever going to get experience at International level? There just doesn't seem to be any collective effort to map out a future strategy.

Just saw this news. If true, what an absolute disgrace that GB aren't taking part.

Dirt - so much anger!!! You can't seriously believe Penhall's decision to ride at the Coliseum in 1982 had anything to do with Carter's actions 4 years later? As for "why he didn't achieve/do more?" - he won everything there was to win, why bother to carry on doing it. I reckon the majority would say well done for having the bottle to try and be a success in a totally different field. As a Cradley fan I was disappointed when he walked out in 1982, but I can totally understand why he did.

Dirt, you have your opinions on Penhall and whilst I don't agree with them I accept your right to have those opinions. However, you surely can't be serious when you blame Penhall for Carter's downfall?

Simmo's column in the new issue of Backtrack says that Sittingbourne (Central Park)are aiming for the NL in 2010, riding on Wednesday evenings at 6pm with Jon Cook being involoved on the management side.

In the last issue JB stated (when talking about the top 20 foreigners) "One sparkling season does not give priority over a full decade of solid performances". So there's a clue....

Interesting debate. Especially to see Rob trying to bolt a statistical analysis onto something which ultimately is quite subjective. So what wins out - the decade long consistency of Mort against the meteoric heights reached by Mike the Bike. Lee was brilliant in 1980, but then had two difficult years before being revitalised by the move down to Poole in 1983. I remember watching him around Wimborne Road that summer and thinking how good it was to see him back to his best. Unfortunately, that was as good as it got as the next couple of seasons were ones of decline for various reasons. Mort on the other hand was at the top throughout the decade but was never able to deliver on World Final night. Ultimately his failure to gate consistently well meant he was never able to have a sniff of the podium. Because of that win in Gothenburg I have to go for Lee as number 1 in the 80's. I would agree largely with Rob's list and order to be honest, so maybe statistics do have their uses.

That should narrow it down to a shortlist of one for the 1980's then.

Bit harsh on Steve Lawson. As far as I recall he ran the family farm and wasn't a full time Speedway rider, so one can't really blame him for staying as a big fish in the National League. I remember him riding for Cradley in late 70's/early 80's and I reckon he would have made a good BL rider if he'd been able to commit the resources needed to be competitive at that level. Having defended him, I have to agree that he is nowhere near the top 20 of the decade. As for the top 20, interesting that there is more debate than the 70's list. Haven't quite got round to posting my full list yet, but no surprises in the names. It's just sorting out the order that is proving difficult.

Of course the wild card at Cardiff will be a Brit and I dare say Danes, Swedes and Poles will be chosen when the GP's are staged on their shale. Hard to see Gorican without Pavlic, but I would imagine the Czech and Italian events may be more flexible. One would think Darcy Ward might benefit from the change. Having said that I can see Ladyluck's point - the Brit wildcard at Cardiff has made little impact in the past few years.