Humphrey Appleby

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...

The Millennium now has one of those hybrid pitches with artificial fibres interwoven with real grass, which holds it together better. However, it's one thing for concert goers to be trampling it underfoot, possibly another to have several thousand tonnes of shale compressing it regardless of what's between the pitch and the shale.

It's comical to believe that BSI is somehow a British plot to damage Polish speedway, even if you consider a company ultimately owned by a multinational US corporation to be 'British'. They've indirectly done far more damage to domestic British speedway than any other country, and I certainly wouldn't be entirely sorry to see the back of them. BSI is not really very competent, as I think this season has certainly demonstrated, but I don't see OneSport as being any better. They've benefitted from being able to exploit a cheaper cost base and focusing on a few popular countries, but their planning and running of events leaves a lot to be desired. How seriously can you take a 'national pairs' competition made up of riders from other countries? You actually don't want competition between organisers in sports - history has shown it's extremely damaging for all concerned, and how is competition between BSI and OneSport actually financially benefit the sport? They're both in it for the expected profits, and little of it comes back to speedway. The attempted bans were of course ridiculous, but the FIM should never have allowed the licensing of what are effectively competing competitions - spreading the sponsorship and television revenue even more thinly. Whilst BSI may be inept, I can perfectly understand their annoyance at having invested money on the back of what they thought was exclusive licensing agreement, only to find an FIM subsidiary licensing what is effectively a parallel GP system. If the FIM had issues with how BSI were running the SGP, they should have addressed that with them, possibly even re-tendering the contract. The premier sports competitions should be collectively run by national speedway authorities for their own common good, even if they might want to contract the actual promotion to a professional organiser for a cut of the profits. In fact, unlike mainstream society, a communist approach is actually the way sport should be run, which is why major sports in the ultra-capitalist USA continue to be run along socialist lines. With respect to the numbers of riders in the SWC teams, it's always a trade-off between favouring strength-in-depth and competitiveness. Generally the fewer the riders, the more competitive countries with less strength in depth will be, but it also allows more teams to compete on reasonable terms in what's supposed to be a World Cup. A true team competition would be run on test match lines with 7 or 8 rider sides, but then there would only be about 4 or 5 teams in the World Cup. I also think it far more likely that BSI runs with four riders per team to save money, rather than any plot to diminish Poland's chances.

Sure, but that's a one-off, and there hasn't been a lot else other than rugby and speedway this year. The Welsh government basically has to subsidise the Millennium to keep it afloat. As for protecting the pitch, I fail to see how tonnes of shale dumped on it for several days is going to be good for it, regardless of whether they put down tarpaulins or a bit of plywood.