Humphrey Appleby

I'm sure OneSport would love British riders to be involved, but just when are they supposed to ride for British teams? The problems with British speedway are many and are well documented, but the BSPA for better or worse are trying to run a regular weekly programme of speedway meetings that allow a significant number of riders to make some sort of living from the sport. It's all very well saying they can do that five days a week and leave the weekends for all these made-up competitions, but the fact of the matter remains that weekend racing (with the odd exception) is preferential from a spectator point of perspective. The modern era of European Championships (as opposed to the FIM-run European Championships that were the forerunner of World Championships) were created by what's now FIM Europe in order to justify his existence, when it was set-up a few years ago in Italy. A member of its track commission told me at the time that it was just to create jobs for people. Since then, the SEC has gained traction thanks to something of a power struggle between different factions within speedway, using the FIM and FIM Europe as their proxies. The Poles in particular, worked out that the FIM and BSI are profiting from the sport without much benefit to Poland, so decided to get in on the action. The Euros are primarily aimed at giving occasional tracks (i.e. those that hold a handful of meetings) around Europe some meetings of apparent significance. The prize money is generally poor, but sticking a 'Euro' title on it gives the illusion of more meaning than a series of open meetings, and part-time riders are probably happy enough to get a few euros to defray their expenses. I very much doubt though, that anyone could make a living out of Euro and World Championship meetings, quite aside from the fact that you can be eliminated in the first round of some of them. And whilst British riders might gain some experience from riding different types of Continental European tracks, I'd have thought regular competitive weekly speedway is of more benefit. I'm not sure how having a plethora of international competitions, or indeed British participation in them, is likely to win back elite riders. Not that Britain can afford the elite riders anyway, but even if it manages to run with its own home-grown riders, having them disappear off to the Continent every weekend for some Euro/World meeting is not very conducive to running a coherent league programme. It's not about being insular, but about British tracks trying to survive financially. I've no particular problem with the World Championships in speedway, but allowing a proliferation of rounds and duplicate competitions, and even worse having them compete with each other for resources, is ultimately not good for the sport anywhere in Europe. Lack of vision, lack of investment, lack of talent... The major professional leagues should have got together years ago to run the SGP, even if it meant hiring a professional management company.

Why should they have been forced to buy something they effectively already owned?

Quite, but why is there a competition more-or-less competing with the SGP? The sport isn't big enough to be stretching its resources thinly. And before anyone says that the other sports have World and European Championships, most of those aren't almost entirely based in one continent, and the different championships are not normally held in the same year.

And can riders make a living out of these meetings? All very well for part-time riders who largely ride for fun, but not so great if you're trying to make ends meet running teams that actually have to pay proper wages to their riders. It's not simply about Britain either. I can't imagine it's ideal for riders to be doing meetings on Saturdays and then driving overnight to ride in Polish league matches, quite aside from the additional injury risk to riders who ride in Poland and Sweden. I find it astonishing and outrageous that the sports so-called governing body is willing to sanction these competitions willy-nilly without any sort of consideration or recompense to the professional leagues. The World U21 does not need to be a GP series, you don't need to have parallel World and Euro GP series, quite aside all the other duplicate pairs and U21 competitions that seem to have proliferated over the past few years. How so? Running mickey mouse pairs events in backwater venues, and filling Torun with 7.5k fans. Even BSI manages to do better than that.

It would simplify TRs as well.

Because averages sans bonus points don't reflect a rider's true average, which has potential consequences for guests and one-to-one replacements. In fact, it can potentially affect who goes at reserve as well.

So private companies are free to organise this championship and that in prime weekend slots, and the leagues actually paying the salaries have to play second fiddle?

Slightly more complexity would actually simplify things. Averages would be a better reflection of ability, and removes the complication of bonus points. You need to know that already to work out bonus points.

Just award points for beating opponents, then it fully reflects a rider's ability and avoids the need for messy bonus points.

Yes, but if OneSport is trying to market the event, will there not be demands to increase the number of rounds?

Does the world need an Under-21 mini GP series? And what will this mean for the national leagues?

Torun is a very decent stadium as well though. I think what it says is that OneSport aren't the salvation that some claim.

7500 at Torun - that's considered a good attendance?

That's always been the case - heat leaders have always had relatively harder rides compared to Nos 2, 6 and 7, although No. 2 historically had to ride with reserves in the critical Heat 8 which was the obvious place for a double tactical substitution. The differences are obviously accentuated with the current system though.

Although I'm fortunate that Mrs Appleby is by no means adverse to going to speedway, I would never consider anything to do with speedway romantic.

Points in team racing should only be awarded for beating opposition riders. Having said that, the law of averages will tend to balance out points scored from beating team mates and opposition riders. Poor riders simply won't score much at all.

The issue isn't being able to find a better format, but paying for it.

Philippe has already suggested that practice messes-up the track too much, so I can't imagine it would stand up to another 20+ heats of speedway.

Until you have to pay the mortgage. If someone is making money from your efforts, then why should you be expected to do it for pittance, or effectively even at a loss? Plenty of sportsmen have been forced into the ignominy of selling their trophies and medals because they made so little money from their chosen sport, even if speedway is even remembered by the time current speedway riders have grandchildren.

I haven't worked it out, but I suspect it would be possible to devise a balanced 18 heat, 3 programmed riders per team format. That would allow the fourth rider to be a non- programmed reserve.

Even if you allowed the reserves one less ride than the others, that would discourage putting the best rider there.

But then you'd have to divide the 'prize money' five instead of four ways, and it's hardly very generous now.

I completely agree that reserves should be allowed in the SWC. That they aren't though, is much more likely to be down to a cost saving measure than a plot to neutralise Poland.

Well that's good, because they're all paying for it.

I'm sure there'll be a scientifically designed and patented 'pitch protection system' rolled out - also known as few bits of plywood covered with a tarpaulin...