Humphrey Appleby

You might pick up the odd extra customer through leafletting, but I don't think it's very effective nowadays. I think people look for stuff to do use the Internet these days. The main problem though, is whereas people know what happens at zoos, amusement parks and corporate karting centres, and will usually some knowledge of major attractions, speedway has fallen so much from the national consciousness that you might as well be advertising a museum of daguerreotypy for all it means to most people.

How would a Joker work in a format where no team has an equal number of rides at any stage until the end of each day?

There's nothing new about a glorified pairs competition. Was previously run from 1993 to 1998 and everyone was relieved when the proper team competition came back. There's nothing even new about running it over 2 days - ice racing has been doing it for years.

You're still supposed to carry identification documentation, which effectively means a passport for Australians. However, you're unlikely to be stopped at the border, so maybe the passport is needed for signing-on at the GP?

Well that's the way it works. I have to submit my passport to get visas to travel for work, and sometimes it takes weeks. That's why I have two passports so I can travel on one whilst another one is sitting in the embassy. The UK government has also stated it wants to create a hostile environment for immigrants, and this is the practical outcome of this. Why should speedway riders expect special treatment - the sport can hardly be considered economically or culturally import to the country.

Difference is that the same lineup is guaranteed for both days of the best pairs, and of course it remains to be seen how successful this 2-day event will be. Like I said, if there was money in a two-day GP it'll already have been done.

Don't know how many times it needs to be said that speedway isn't football. You're comparing apples and pears, not least because the Champions League is a team event whose fans will generally follow regardless of who's playing, versus the individual event that's the SGP. And not to mention that fans can be sure both teams will be playing in the final match. If having qualifying events before the main event was such a good idea, why does the Champions League not hold its Semi-Finals and Final at the same venue? As I said, I'm sure speedway has thought of running two-day meetings before, and has indeed experimented with it on the odd occasion. But they obviously don't do it for good reasons, and the ditching of the SWC which had a qualifier on the Friday before the Final, is just another nail in the coffin of the idea.

The 24-rider format was dropped because it was too expensive. Running a qualifying meeting at the same venue might seem like a good idea, but how would you sell tickets for the main meeting without knowing exactly who's going to be riding? Plus what happens if a particular favourite or top star doesn't make it to main meeting? There are also costs associated with running a meeting beyond hiring the venue, such as staffing, and what sort of attendance would you get for a Friday meeting? I'd also imagine there could be issues with track preparation for back-to-back meetings, especially at the temporary venues where it seems hard enough to get things right for one meeting let alone two. If you could run Saturdays and Sundays that might be one thing, but speedway is fairly unique amongst other sports in that it's 'premier' event has to compete with domestic competitions, namely Polish speedway that's run on Sundays. And whilst I disagree with the hand-picking of riders, I see no advantage in picking 24 over 16. You're just increasing costs and potentially diluting the quality of the lineup. 48 is a number that would allow every speedway riding country to nominate at least one rider, but still ensure the stronger countries could have 3 or 4 in the field. It's clearly not currently economic, but I used it as a illustration to show that you're not going to improve anything just by expanding the field. Do you really think riders for the speedway GP aren't selected because they have particular backers rather than because they're the best riders?

You might see it, but history would suggest that 2-day speedway meetings aren't well supported. For some reason there's more of culture of it in ice racing, but there's presumably a reason why it doesn't happen much in speedway.

How would those riders be paid for, given that 24 rider fields weren't financially viable before? And you'd still have the problem that the 24 riders would have to be hand-picked, which doesn't improve the current situation much whilst greatly increasing costs. To have a reasonably inclusive field drawing from various national nominations, you really need to have a minimum of 48 riders and that's not going to be financially viable for any organiser, especially those outside of Europe.

Who'd pay to watch speedway qualifying meetings on Fridays? 2-day events have rarely been successful in speedway for whatever reasons, and even if you held a qualifier, it still wouldn't offer enough places to provide reasonable opportunities to a broad spectrum of candidates.

Not sure what you’re construing as negative - it was merely an observation that the backroom team is going to be bigger than the riding team. Of course some will believe in anything, regardless of the economic realities of the sport. ‘Where is the money is coming from’ is just about the most important question in anything in life, because that determines the sustainability of whatever you’re doing or planning to do.

A backroom team of 10 is a lot of mouths to feed, even if some are only part-time. Must be some good sponsorship...

Why do they need to sponsor British speedway, and why would they want to? Sponsorship is not a charitable donation.

Are they serious? Ipswich Motorsport Park is in the middle of nowhere - it's not even that close to Ipswich which holds little for the tourist, nor anything like the right configuration for speedway. Plus I seem to remember reading there were issues with the local council ownership. They'd be better off at Archerfield, but even that's hardly in the spirit of 'raising the bar' and 'taking the GP to city venues'.

Do you go to motor sport much? Plenty of women involved in it, especially in car racing - including doing the 'dirty jobs'. Certainly nowhere near as many as men, but then if you look at Communications & Marketing then the situation would be different.

It’s not about being offended. I’ve nothing against looking at attractive women. It’s just tacky for the same reason that I’ve never understood why it’s necessary to drape rather fake women over cars to sell them. I find it rather insulting that someone would think they could sway my purchase that way.

I think it was clear why national teams weren't allowed, but why didn't they try and do something with club teams? It would have at least had more relevance.

And if there wasn't that sort of clause in the contract, then OneSport must have very poor lawyers.

I doubt it'll be shown where I live, even if I wanted to.

For whom? For a private promoter and maybe 18 riders going through the motions in a utterly pointless event?

Eventually the law pinned something on the serial dodgy dealer.. https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/invaro-collapse-businessman-terry-lindon-3349013

This Speedway of Nations is a innovative and exciting competition that's never been seen before, and will stop Poland winning everything. Those who point out that the World Team Cup used to be run with a pairs + reserve format and with Semi-Finals, and that Team Ice Speedway has always been run over a couple days, are merely being churlish and not getting with the programme...

The whole concept of national teams and national representation is breaking down in a world with ever greater mobility and desperation for sporting success (both on the part of competitors and countries). To some extent it's fair enough that competitors with parentage or genuine links to more than one country have the choice, but flags of convenience are making a farce of it all. We saw that in the Olympic skiing half-pipe where the 'Hungarian' competitor basically just skied down the course without doing a single trick, although at least the 'Tongan' cross-country skier made a decent effort and didn't even finish last. To be honest, I don't really see why competitors in individual sports need to be representing any country at all, nor those in made-up 'team' sports like the luge doubles or pairs skating.

The Cricket World Cup and T20 World Cup are still 11-a-side competitions. The IRB Sevens is an addition to, not a replacement for the Rugby World Cup. Run the Pairs as a second tier competition if you like, but too much of the tail wagging the dog here.