salty

Totally agree. Surely Andy Smith should have been asked as he outscored them at Kirky Lane and his after meeting quotes seemed to indicate that he was willing to continue in the qualifiers.

Know what you mean Iris, I think he had some pretty dull black ones with a bit of yellow on them for most of his time at Wimbledon. Just out of interest who would your fave Dons have been in the last years of top flight Speedway in the early 80's?

Got the book last weekend and as yet have only flicked though it, to be honest Simmo doesn't really make much of his time at Plough Lane, concentrating more on his Lynn, Poole and England days. I started attending Wimbledon regularly at the end of the '81 season and for the next couple of years for the most part it was a pleasure to watch Simmo in action. One of the few who could regularly come from the back on a track where passing was difficult. Retro Speedway seem to be raising the bar ever higher with the quality of their publications, looking forward to seeing the Booey book and the next instalment of John Berry's revelations. Well Done Tony Mc.

Nice one. I'm sure he will never mention it again and nor will I........until next time.

Tell Lee Richardson then, Jim. He was the one who bought the issue up in his recent interview in the Speedway Star.

Understand your points Jim, but to be fair, Chris was responding to Lee's quote in Speedway Star when he said the EVENT was "crap". If his van was playing up is neither here nor there and has nothing to do with the organisation of the event.

Any reason why you took exception to the flyer? Have to say it did the job in our household, leaving it near the kettle for a day resulting in my better half picking up on the hint and arranging it to be presented by the kids on Sunday morning.(the book that is, not the flyer)

Having got this book yet, I'm hoping it might find its way to me for Fathers Day. Personally I would much rather read a book that told the truth warts and all than a bland, ghosted autobiography. I think Simmo should be applauded for having the guts to be so honest.

Which two riders?

I think Richardson was misquoted re the British Final at Oxford. He meant to say "I was crap" given that he garnered 2 points and then withdrew before the meeting was half over.

I suppose 3 qualifiers is better than none, though it will be a tough meeting to sat the least. Don't like the idea of the 4 wild cards, would prefer it if numbers 9 to 15 were seeded to the Qualifier final and then there were 7 to qualify from that.

Top 8 from this year stay in to be joined by the top 3 from the GP qualifier and 4 permanent wildcards. Qualifiers are at Tarnow, poland and Miskolc, Hungary on Sat July 8 and Zarnovica , Slovakia on the following day. 5 go through from Poland and Hungary and 6 from Slovakia. Do you want to know the allocations by country for the qualifiers???

Well Done Danny King, qualified in 4th place!!! Good to see Holder get through as well.

One and the same. But it is his home track though. Wonder if he will be the wild card for the GP.

Two other threads actually, which I don't think qualifies as many. Do you actually think he would have got more benefit from riding at Arlington than travelling to a foreign track to represent his country? The late withdrawal of the Latvians has unfortunately cast doubt on the validity of the World Under 21 Cup but the young Danes and Germany 1 were no mean opposition. Don't know who took the decision for Eddie and Lewis to withdraw from the event, but surely international experience on foreign tracks is all important. Can you not see a lack of consistency with the way Loram has been treated?

I've always been a fan of Rune and supported his riding for Poland in World Cup last year. My understanding was that he felt it would improve his standing with the GP organisers if he rode well in such an event. If he now reverts back to being Norwegian, I think most people will see it as a cynical move and he would lose a lot of goodwill. Having said that I do feel he is one of the top 15 in the world and is worthy of GP status.

Given the controversy over Mark Loram's omission from this event, does anyone find it strange that Edward Kennett is allowed to ride given that he decided to ride for Eastbourne on Monday instead of representing his country in the Under 21 World Cup. Or am I the only one who thinks there are some double standards at play here?

Difficult situation when 3 riders who could have easily qualified missed the meeting (Kolodziej and Kasper through injury, Holta being sick). Maybe Holta will revert to being Norwegian as I understand they get 2 slots in the Tarnow round!!! Seriously, it seems a bit daft that riders of this quality will miss out this year whilst we will have 3 Hungarians, 2 Italians, 2 French, a Croat, an Austrian and a Slovakian in the next round of qualifiers.

I suspected as much, but thanks for confirming it. Would love to see some action taken against the offending promotions, maybe not being picked as hosts for any shared events. Kennett and Bridger should not have been allowed to ride for their clubs tonight. Find it even more amazing that Kennett got the nod for Cardiff. Then they wonder why Britain is a fading force on the world stage.

Why weren't they picked? Seems strange that Kennett gets picked in front of Danny King for the Cardiff reserve position but doesn't get picked for this.

That's true but crucially he did finish ahead of Richardson who got a seeded spot. From what I remember Pepe's sponsors (Pentel) were a factor in him getting a seeded place. Obviously this farce should not be repeated as the qualifiers are back this year. I still think there are some seeded spots though, could someone clarify.

To be honest I was surprised only 3 out of the 22 cried off.

The whole point of the 4-3-2-0 scoring is to encourage team riding and to help the strongest pair win the meeting, not a duo which has one rider who sweeps all before him whilst his partner struggles. So why oh why have a tie break system that reward the lop sided partnership???? Only in Speedway.........

Nice to Steady end the weekend on a high note.

How long did it take Pearson to realise that it didn't matter what Peterboro' did in their last outing either Eastbourne or Swindon were going to get more points? Poole hard done by imo. Should have gone down to who won their head to head with the Aces.