Humphrey Appleby

BSI obviously want freedom to ensure the right 'mix' of riders, and not have some sort of Andy Smith sneaking back in every year. There's obviously going to be at least one, if not two British nominees next year, simply because Britain has the 'prestige' GP and is one of the biggest markets for television. Unfortunately, whilst Nicholls underachieves year-after-year (I'm starting to sound like Subedei here ), there really isn't any other British rider who's better at the moment. I suspect BSI would like to be able to handpick all the riders every year, but the FIM and the SGP riders wouldn't stand for that. I suspect Britain will get two nominees, simply in case one of them gets injured during these season.

Ice racing is usually held on speed skating tracks, and there are none in Britain as far as I know. There is little interest in conventional speed skating in Britain, so not worth investing in the necessary facilities. The little interest in speed skating there is, is in the short track form which is held on conventional ice rinks (e.g. ice hockey rinks) that are too small for proper ice racing. Weather doesn't come into the issue. The Netherlands has a 400m outdoor speed skating track in nearly every town, and the weather there is similar to the UK. Sometimes the track is covered (although open in the middle) as in Assen, but it's by no means necessary. The tracks are usually open from about October to April, but speed skating is almost a religion in that country (particularly in the north).

The top placed rider in what? Nicki Pedersen was the top placed rider not already in the Super Prix, by total points scored over the 11 rounds. How would sticking in Hans Andersen, a rider who 'only' managed fifth over the course of the season have made the situation any better? Why are people getting so worked-up about this? The Super Prix is a gimmicky distraction from the finale of the season-long World Championship anyway.

And for once I agree with you, even if the Super Prix is a daft concept in itself.

Or even the top 4 riders in the world.

I thought it was more embarrassing that Bellamy was handing over a trophy that looked like it had been made in a CDT class.

Then why are they getting peoples' hopes up by pretending it's going to happen, or have they found another sucker to lose bundles of cash?

Next you'll be calling him a beggar!

I haven't a clue and neither do I much care, as I find it ridiculous that a rider can win as much prize money in a one-off race as from winning all eleven GPs over a whole season. All I'm saying is that Pedersen didn't look that bothered at 'missing out' on the jackpot through a tapes exclusion.

QUOTE (Rob B @ Oct 18 2008, 08:27 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Anyone get the impression like me that Hancock was saying in his speech that he was thinking of retiring. Hopefully retiring from promoting that damn drink of his, which I wouldn't even try on principle now

Well Pedersen didn't seem too bothered about touching the tapes.

Is it any great mystery? The last time round, I think the Aussie GP organisers paid for shipping the riders' equipment from London, but the riders had to get it there are their own expense. Normally travel expenses for a rider and his crew also have to come out of the prize money, but obviously the crap prize money wouldn't hardly cover the air fares out to Australia. I seem to recall that some additional allowance was paid last time around, but again there were whinges this was insufficient.

Errr.. no, it could happen in any sport unless you award more points for winning a single round than you could gain by accumulating all second places, and I'm sure most would agree that would be farcical. It's admittedly unusual to win a series without winning a round, but I'm sure it must have happened at some point (and there have certainly been F1 champions that have only won a single GP in a season).

No, the website is pretty poor at the best of times, and there's barely even a mention of the cancelled GP mixed in amongst other trivial news items. Piss poor really. The BSI corporate website is also pretty superficial and hasn't been updated in yonks either.

But it's a bit 'if' isn't it? How much notice did the organisers have, and how quickly could the machine be shipped out there?

It's because BSI they don't promote the other GPs themselves. Those are licensed to local promoters who pay BSI a fee for the privilege, but who then get to keep the gate and programme money. They'd therefore no doubt expect to be compensated by BSI for those fans they let in for free.

I know you don't want this to descend into a general rant against the Spar, and to be fair I haven't seen this week's copy yet. Nevertheless, why are you surprised? The Spar lost any journalistic credibility years ago, merely parroting what the BSPA and BSI want the great unwashed to hear. It's nothing more than a trade magazine these days, which is hardly surprising as it's largely owned by the establishment.

Well there's only the Speedway Star in Britain as the main newspapers are just not interested in speedway. And the Speedway Star long since sold its soul to the 'powers-that-be' so don't expect any critical journalism from that quarter. It's more fun to make up conspiracy theories on here anyway.

Autocratic is all very well.. so long as you do a good job.

That's as may be, but it's down to BSI to negotiate enough time for proper track preparation, especially at the GPs they run themselves. No doubt time is constricted by what BSI are willing to pay to rent the venues, but again that's really only down to them. They are slick for a very good reason. Olsen believes hard slick tracks produce closer racing for television, as they are more consistent and easier to ride. The fact it's almost impossible to pass and leads to boring GPs doesn't seem to occur to him, but there you go. In fairness to him with temporary tracks though, I suspect it's close to impossible task to lay a good racing track in a short time. I'm not sure it would help to bring in track curators from countries that only stage a handful of meetings per season. No disrespect, but they're unlikely to have the same experience, particularly with doing things in a limited timeframe. There are decent track curators in the major speedway countries who know how to prepare proper race tracks, but they won't get a look in whilst Olsen is around.

That would be a bit of a long way to go for a GP to be rained-off in an indoor stadium.

BMI are a perfectly respectable airline - I'm not sure they'd appreciated being blamed for last weekend's fiasco.

I don't think it's fair to make the comparison. Odsal's capacity was cut to 27,000 after the nearby Valley Parade fire, and the 1990 World Final was a sell-out.

Odsal also got close to 27,000 for its last World Final, which I'm sure BSI would be pretty happy with at most GPs!

You know nothing about me, and what I do or don't do. Furthermore, unless you're John Postlethwaite in disguise, I don't see you running the SGP either (and if you are him, you're not even doing that now ). As far as I can see, your only contribution is to unquestioningly defend the amateurish organisation that is BSI, but if that's making something happen in your book, well fine. Well in fact they did have the vision, which is why created the SGP and sold it off to BSI. Unfortunately though, their vision did nothing to benefit main speedway nations who actually allow professional riders to exist in the first place. Or erm... the Munich Olympic Stadium? In fact, the 1993 World Final was originally scheduled for the Berlin Olympic Stadium, but the plans for that and Gelsenkirchen demonstrate the problem with having a big speedway event in Germany. With the best will in the world, there simply isn't enough German interest in speedway to support such things.