Humphrey Appleby

It is somewhat in the UK, except around Wimbledon. Regardless though, speedway simply vanished from the schedules on Saturday and we had the odd situation where the former England cricket captain ended-up having to explain where it had gone.

Riders can't make a living from SGP, and I suspect that's unlikely to change in the future even if IMG/BSI eke out a few more rounds. However, they'll continue to juggle the SGP and league racing whilst they're allowed to do, and it's up to the league promoters to find/force a more optimal arrangement (for them). This won't happen by the British leagues taking unilateral action though, as even if they ignored the GPs, domestic attendances on Saturday nights would be affected if they're up against a GP on television. However, whilst you can't blame IMG/BSI for looking for business opportunities, it's an absolute nonsense that a third party is allowed to own and operate the premier event in the sport without sanction from, or compensation payable to the promoters who provide the riders with a living. However, until the British, Swedish and Polish stop trying to compete with each other and insist on a better deal, then the sport will muddle on indefinitely. I suspect the SGP doesn't make as much money as people imagine, but it would be better if that were going directly back to the sport rather than to an Anglo-American corporation...

I finally gave up on watching the SGP last year, such was the dullness of the competition in the preceding couple of years. However, I have caught a couple of GPs this season and I'll admit they seem a lot more entertaining. I would have watched the last one as well, but with the overrunning of the cricket, it was moved to the red button which doesn't work on Virgin Media. That I think sums up the relative standing of the sport, and despite the supposedly good viewing figures (as some posters on here recently suggested these have been exaggerated), it's clearly little more than a filler sport for Sky. Regardless of the entertainment though, what does the SGP actually mean for bread-and-butter speedway? Does it bring more fans through the turnstiles or otherwise bring more money to local tracks through sponsorship or other means. Do the benefits of having the SGP on pseudo prime-time television justify the loss of 11 prime weekends during the season? I suspect the SGP has prevented a more rapid decline in interest in the sport than would otherwise have happened, and has probably tapped into the latent market of 'people who used to go to speedway'. It may even have attracted some new fans, but the ever declining attendances at British tracks would suggest this doesn't really translate into direct benefits at the national level.

The SGP would be finished without television, although whether the sport needs the SGP is of course the great debate...

Does anyone actually know how much money Cardiff makes (or doesn't) and how this compares to former Wembley Finals...?

It simply comes down to a promoter willing to pay IMG/BSI for privilege of staging a GP, pay the travel expenses, and assume the risk of the potential losses. Presumably if it were financially worthwhile IMG/BSI would have promoted it themselves before now... What would be point of staging GPs in non-speedway countries where it's never likely to become established, just so IMG/BSI can earn a bit more money? The reason that F1 and MotoGP races are staged in these places is simply because the local emirs pay a fortune for the prestige, not because the locals are particularly interested in the sport (as evidenced by the crowds). Speedway though, just isn't in the same league as these sports prestige wise.

The problem is that large athletics stadiums are white elephants, so the stadium either needs to be drastically reduced in size, or converted for use by a more popular sport. Either way, I can't see how speedway would fit into the plans... This said, the site of the stadium is close enough to Central London to make it interesting enough for fans, and I'm sure the Olympic Park will have its attractions as well, just as Munich did for the 1989 World Final. Whilst Cardiff is a decent enough venue, I can't see why people get religious about the place.

Before 1985, I think all teams did start in quarter-finals, but even though the Intercontinental/Continental division tempered the worst mismatches, the competitive imbalances were probably the main reason why the format was changed. That was also in the days before the breakup of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia which are now represented by multiple teams. Russia (and the Soviet Union before it) has always been one of the better 'minor' speedway countries, and reached a number of World Finals in the past. It would be better to look at the results of smaller countries which have put out teams in the past. Staging a tournament with eight teams means twice the amount of expenses, and at least one and possibly two meetings wouldn't feature the home team. What might work is staging the quarter-finals as a double header, but again there's still twice the expenses. The World Cup admittedly doesn't include the best 32 teams, but nearly all finalists these days are able to make a match of things. The competition has the money to fund proper preparation, and of course most of the players in the finals will be full-time professionals. Moreover, even a football team ranked 60th in the world is still amongst the top third (as there's 202+ teams). By comparison, a speedway team ranked 16th is about two-thirds of the way down, but most countries ranked below about 20th only have a handful of riders and couldn't hope to enter even a half-competitive side at the lowest level. I think there were never more than 20 countries represented in the World Pairs, even though speedway is probably ridden in about 26 countries. [bTW - I underestimated Luxembourg who are currently ranked 116 by FIFA. The equivalent of the highest ranked nation riding against 16th in speedway (assuming 26 speedway countries) is Spain against the world footballing powers of Singapore.. ]

The fundamental problem with the format you suggest, would be the extreme mismatches in the quarter-finals, plus the problem in speedway that meetings without local interest are invariably financial disasters. The SWC is not really comparable with the World Cup in this respect, and the difference between the 1st and 16th ranked team in international speedway is probably akin to Spain playing Luxembourg or similar. I think it's better all round to have a multi-stage competition whereby some countries are seeded to the later stages so that everyone competes at a level appropriate to their relative strength. There is a 4TT format that can accommodate 5 teams per meeting, so you could easily expand the competition to 16 or even 18 teams using the current structure. If you went to 3 or even 4 qualifying rounds, you could accommodate up 20 teams if necessary.

Simply because there would only be 5 or 6 competitive teams if head-to-head matches with 7 or 8 rider teams were used. The other problem is that it would require more meetings and more travelling, as generally speedway meetings held at neutral venues are not economically viable. In addition, it's not practical for the likes of Australia and the US to host home meetings, so they'd always have to ride away. In addition, many countries did (and a lot still do) use the 4TT format for their team competitions, so it's nothing unusual for them at all. And even if head-to-head matches were logistically practical in the SWC, team sizes and heat formats differ from country-to-country, so you'd still need to agree on a common format. The 4TT is a reasonable compromise that gives more nations the opportunity to compete in the SWC, keeps the number of meetings (and thus costs) to a minimum, and solves the problen of certain nations not being able to ride at home.

Yes, but then it would be a pairs competition rather than a proper team competition. Whilst the team riding aspect was better with the pairs format, there is a reasonable four-team format in riders compete as pairs, but that was scrapped after only a couple of editions because each team only rides in every other heat. A three-team format isn't really very good either, because it's not practical for every rider to meet every other rider unless you run either 12 or 27 heats. The riding order can therefore unduly influence the result in the common, but unbalanced 18-heat 3TTs. Whilst weak teams in the SWC have always been an issue, the 4TT format is at least balanced and provided three of the teams in each meeting are competitive, it doesn't really matter if one mismatched side is included.

I seem to remember the problem with Wolves was that the straights and bends were too narrow for FIM requirements.

AFAIK, Wolverhampton has never been an FIM licensed track, so that rules that out.

It's about raising awareness in small ways. RAF Careers have in the past provided our karting series with sponsorship - which largely amounted to providing a tent with the RAF logo on it, a flag to put up on the flagpole, and few decals for the karts. Karting is watched by a handful of people, but it does still seem to generate interest and I know at least one karter that joined up.

It's likely for recruitment purposes. It's typical lack of joined-up government thinking though - the government says it needs to reduce the size of the armed forces, so they go on a recruitment drive.

Whilst not as suspiciously round as some attendances quoted in the past, it does still seem coincidentally exact. This said, I imagine published attendances are meaningless for tax purposes because there are different priced tickets and concessionary prices as well.

Not sure. I think it was originally created as some sort of FIM/UEM project to expand speedway into new areas, and just held meetings with 'imported' riders.

At Santerem.

Whilst I'd agree Munich and Oxford (and no doubt others) shouldn't be counted as active, there's still the question of what actually constitutes a speedway track, and at what point do you consider a track inactive? There must be a number of tracks in Australia and New Zealand that only infrequently stage speedway, and are of a length that technically constitutes a longtrack rather speedway track if you follow FIM definitions. Conversely, there was even a 'longtrack' somewhere in Germany (don't know if it's still active) that was short enough that it could be considered a speedway track.

Yes, but at what point do you consider a track defunct? Some tracks are still physically there (e.g. Oxford), but haven't staged a meeting in a while. Others only irregularly stage speedway, and speedway may not even be the main function of the track.

Does one count temporary tracks in stadiums, indoor speedway tracks, or multi-purpose 'speedway' tracks such as you get in Australia and New Zealand? Do you count Hackney twice if you visited it as the 'London Stadium'? Anyway, my count would be 53 'pure' speedway tracks in Britain (only counting Hackney once), Poland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Slovenia and the USA. Sadly 17 of these are now defunct. To this you can add 3 stadium tracks (Cardiff, Munich and Gothenburg), 2 indoor speedway tracks (London Arena and Manchester G-MEX), 2 ice racing tracks (Assen and Utrecht). I suppose you could also include Telford as well, but that's neither ice racing nor speedway. There's also a handful of longtracks and grasstracks as well, but in the case of grasstracks I'd only count them if they were in a proper stadium. I've been to plenty of grasstrack meetings held in various fields, but I'm not sure you can describe them as tracks as such.

Speaking from our own experience, there's usually some relationship between event organisers and the government at some level in Russia. If you can arrange some some sort of 'fixer', then nothing is a problem and it's amazing how easy the paperwork is expediated. If someone doesn't want you there though, it's amazing what obstacles crop up. In my view, international sporting events should not be held where there is a general visa requirement. The only European countries that really do this now are Russia and Belarus, but if you do allocate an event there (or anywhere for that matter), it should be a condition of hosting that visas are automatically granted to qualified competitors.

How convenient! The games you play with the Russian authorities over visas are something of legend.

Kelvin Tatum was never a rider I particularly admired during his riding days, but I did think the interview was very good. In fact, I thought it was one of the best issues for a while. It was rather sad to read that he felt that he was driven out of Coventry by the fans in the end, but he wasn't the first. I remember once being asked to sign a petition to have Kai Niemi sacked as I was going into the stadium.

Attracting 12,000 fans (let along 7,000) for the sport's premier event is considered good health...? Ullevi used to draw 25-30,000.