Humphrey Appleby

Not sure what that says about the quality of Travel Plus (thought they hadn't been mentioned for a while) punters...

There are two reasons - one their fault, the other not. The thing that is their fault are their poor organisation/supervision of GPs and then failure to take responsibility when things go wrong.It's appreciated that track preparation isn't an exact science and that you can be unfortunate with the weather, but after 15-odd years of doing it, you'd think you'd have enough experience of what it takes to prepare a track. Yet, in the past years we've seen unnecessary cancellations (one indoors!), another indoor GP nearly cancelled, a GP moved overnight to another venue miles away, and several other very poor GPs at one-off venues. The reason that isn't their fault, is that revenue from the sport's premier competition does not appear to accrue back to the competitions that produce and develop the riders, despite having the pick of dates and riders. This has been endlessly discussed before though. It's potentially quite a good development to have an Australian GP, and I can see why October is probably the only realistic date given that the stadium is used for AFL matches in February/March, and then for cricket later in the year. However, it doesn't change the fact that it's going to disrupt the end of the European season.

I'd imagine a GP in Melbourne might pull 20-25k or so, but Victoria is not really a state with much of a solo speedway tradition these days. It seems people will go to new GPs for the novelty, but crowds are harder to sustain in the longer term. However, one would think this one has been costed with local authority support. The last GP can also be a poisoned chalice though, if the title has already been sewn up. And with the last one being a long away day, always the chance of a few sicknotes.

I'd imagine the promoters had a lot of explaining to do to the City Council who presumably fronted up the staging costs. Maybe they're not so keen to be involved with another fiasco?

So the GP will be in Riga or Daugavpils?

It's not strange at all. The NZ GP lost its promoter a packet and he said enough was enough after his 3 year commitment was up. It's not going to a new continent - it's been there before and the pulled was pulled after its promoter got burned.

So BSI have given up on Riga already...?

How many have actually tried? However, it's not quite the same thing as yellow and red cards are largely an on-field summary judgement by the officials which is largely accepted by the competitors. Doping and alcohol testing is not only a scientific process, but the ramifications for those failing are generally much higher than for an on-field offence.

Yes, but Kelvin Tatum was primarily a speedway rider until focusing on longtrack when he realised he was never going to do anything World Championship wise in speedway. I could be wrong, but I also thought Gerd Riss was the rare German rider who focused more on speedway than longtrack. I think it could also be argued that Simon Wigg would have been a more successful speedway rider if he hadn't had the longtrack/grasstrack distraction. He no doubt carved a lucrative niche from those disciplines (which is fair enough), but how many people remember World Longtrack Champions...?

The whole matter of suspending competitors before a proper hearing has been held goes somewhat against natural justice, and I'd imagine on shaky legal ground if it came to the crunch. Equally though, if a rider tests over the limit before a meeting, then they can hardly be allowed to race. One would hope an alcohol test organised by a world governing body would follow a procedure that could be legally be upheld, and if things have been done correctly, then goodness knows why it should take so long to hold a formal hearing. If the FIM has managed to stuff-up something so simple, or even worse, if someone somewhere wants to manipulate Ward into the SGP next season, then the sport really has lost any remaining credibility it might have. One might forlornly hope that a journal of record might get to the bottom of such a potential scandal..

Why would a Latvian GP have anything to do with the ACU? It'll either be under the FIM which is incorporated in Switzerland, or very arguably under the Latvia FMN.

Used to be the way in the past, didn't it? Speedway riders turning up to win the World Longtrack, which surely sums up the relative quality of the discipline...

I'd say yes. It's not turned 'soccer' into a major sport, but it does now appear to be able to sustain a professional league in both the mens and womens' game, and the USA has qualified for every World Cup since 1994. I think womens' football has particularly benefitted, even if it's totally over-hyped.

Depends what you're trying to compare. Karting is a participatory sport and to the best of my knowledge has never tried to be a spectator sport, even if some meetings in 60s pulled some large crowds. However, as the grassroots of F1, it attracts monied people and I'd suggest is in a far better financial state than speedway. It's certainly better run than speedway, even at the lowest club level. Don't know so much about road racing, but I'd imagine it's more in-line with karting than speedway.

They'd then have to pay someone, and they probably don't want to do that.

I seem to remember hearing you need to speak Latvian to become a citizen, which is why so many Russians living in Latvia are essentially stateless.

As a long time subscriber, it would be more convenient if an online version could be produced as well. From a selfish perspective I tend to move around a bit and I don't want to keep changing the subscription address, but more generally it's increasingly the way things are going. It's an excellent mag though.

Okay. Came over that teams would race home and away in their regional league first. Why then split the leagues into north and south and limit who can be in the Final? All the best teams might be in one region Just keep the regionalised groups, but base the 'playoffs' on seeding so the best teams can reach the Final. Would also be better to only ride teams twice rather than four times to avoid repetition. So home and away in own group (10 matches), home and away against nearest geographical group (12 matches) and then home or away against the other two groups (12 matches). Basic problem though, is the format becomes too complicated as and when there's an uneven number of teams in each group. There's also a vast difference in economics between some of the teams, which is really why at least a two-tier structure is needed.

Perhaps Travel Plus might get the information. They haven't been mentioned once on this thread...

No idea, but it's been previously rumoured it may just be promotional support. Organisers and sponsors are normally very happy to crow about how much a particular sponsorship deal is worth, but we've heard nothing about this one.

12 teams in a group home and away = 22 matches. 6 teams in a group = 6 matches 34 matches What happens if there ends up being an odd number of teams in group for whatever reason?

Assuming they're actually handing over hard cash.

To me it doesn't really stack up as the potential audience is too distributed across too big an area, and Arnhem is not enough of an easy-to-reach tourist destination in the way that Prague or Riga are. The GPs in the smaller speedway countries that seem to do reasonably well for crowds, seem to be those where there's a well established club and a decent local rider or two. That Germany can't seem to hold down a regular GP is quite telling, even though that probably has the fourth or fifth biggest fan base of all speedway countries. If they can't, then attempting to attract German fans to a GP in a neighbouring country seems doomed to failure; much as I'd like to see a Dutch GP (although I'd prefer Amsterdam).

Yes, but Gelsenkirchen wasn't really a success, and that's not a million miles from Arnhem. What's the attendance at Assen - maybe 8K for each day? I think people are attracted to Assen because ice racing is something completely different and it's something to do in the winter months, but faced with a choice of GPs, would people choose to spend a weekend in Arnhem?

How many have been tested in all that time, or more specifically at regular meetings and not just World Championship events? I've witnessed plenty of riders getting hammered in bars the day before they're riding, and I suspect quite a few might be found to be over the limit if there was widespread testing. This said, I'd accept that a zero limit is somewhat different to the legal limit for driving, and that it doesn't necessarily follow that a non-zero reading means they're unfit to ride.