iris123

Some decent racing and a crowd Tooting and Mitcham would be ashamed of

Tbh i don't recall ever getting a better photo than you, mate

Thought so. Just wasn't sure of the spelling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kjasts_Puodžuks

Didn't a Latvian rider also ride for Oxford ?

Agree totally. I always remember one Russian Final when he was almost lying on the track with his bike, but managed to control it and carry on. One of the most amazing pieces of riding i have ever seen

Just wondering when the last time Bulankin qualified for the final ?

Russian Championship semi finals Shadrinsk 1. Ivan Bolshakov Irkutsk 2. Huzhin Ivan Togliatti 3. Fesenko Alexander Kumertau 4. Ilya Krivonozhko Togliatti 5. Nesitykh Vasily Ufa 6. Khomitsevich Dmitry Kamensk-Uralsky 7. Demidenko Daniel Kamensk-Uralsky 8. Dmitry Koltakov Kamensk-Uralsky 9. Evgeny Sharov Ufa 10. Saidullin Igor Togliatti 11. Burmistrov Artem Shadrinsk 12. Ruslan Litvinov Irkutsk 13. Fedorov Daniel Kamensk-Uralsky 14. Andrey Anisimov Togliatti 15 Matvey Volkov Shadrinsk 16. Dmitry Solyannikov Shadrinsk https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBuZhb543-j_pL5kW0NhmEw Ufa 1.Lushnikov Daniel Saransk 2. Volodin Sergey Moscow 3. Bogdanov Nikita Ufa 4. Tsybrov Nikita Lukhovitsy 5. Makarov Sergey Lukhovitsy 6. Tarasov Nikita Ufa 7. Zakharov V. Saransk 8. Krysov Eduard Moscow 9. Anton Sozykin Neftekamsk 10. Kolganov A. Lukhovitsy 11. Bulankin Dmitry Ufa 12. Ivanov Daniel Togliatti 13. Kononov Igor Togliatti 14. Vedyanov Savely Kamensk-Uralsky 15 Vladimir Fadeev Kamensk-Uralsky 16. Toloknov Nikita Togliatti 17. Gorshkov M. Ufa

Must say I was surprised Parker was number 1 and even more surprised Grosskreutz wasn’t in there at all

Actually, thinking back, i know Mellgren won the 80cc title. The first non Dane and was highly rated by TRick, but it was his compatriot, Dennis Andersson, who looked like he might become a top rider.European U19 champ, looking good at Poole i think. What ever happened to him ?

I did see Fayzulin and Sissis as youngsters. I think Egon Müller rated Arslan very high when he was at a training week that Egon attended . Sissis i thought looked great when up against Mikkel Bech and Mikkelsen with little experience of 80cc and having travelled half way round the world. I#d guess it was the lure of road racing that stopped his development. Maybe also mental attitude ? But for a couple of days in Denmark he really was a wonder to watch and i would, probably did predict he had a great future. Especially as during the same period i also watched Darcy Ward, Jepsen Jensen, Woryna and some other talented youngsters

Preliminary line-ups of the teams for stages 1-2: "Technical Sports Center of Sverdlovsk Region". (Kamensk-Uralsky) Khomitsevich Dmitry Dmitry Koltakov Weber Hans "Bashkortostan" (Ufa) Evgeny Sharov Krasnikov Nikolay Nikita Bogdanov "Mega-Lada (Togliatti) Daniil Ivanov Kononov Igor Toloknov Nikita "Torpedo-SHAAZ (Shadrinsk) Matvey Volkov Artyom Burmistrov Dmitry Solyannikov "Vympel" (Kumertau) Basil Nesytykh Nikita Tarasov Alexander Fesenko

Well he was a fantastic rider anyway. But still developing and was with the Mauger troupe down under in the winter 75/76 with Egon Müller etc and came back in those early months a much improved rider

It wasn't for me Steve

Yes, but i think the point was they wanted to get a bit more practice in before a proper meeting. Might have helped with the falls, and also the competetiveness to some extent As i said, this meeting is though generally like having GP riders against Championship with a few novices to make up the field. You are never going to get brilliant racing Agree on the super league though

As i said, a lot of riders thought it was the wrong time to hold such a meeting. But what i don't really understand, was they seemed to make their thoughts public very late in the day, when this has been planned for a good while from memory

This is one of the funny, or sad stories that happen now and again. About a sculpture outside of a zoo It is of a man climbing the neck of a Giraffe Now the man looks black, and that to some is racist. The artist say's it is bronze and that is how the colour has changed over the 20 years since it was erected But i also saw a Muhammed Ali interview with Parky the other day, when Ali was talking about every day racism in society and got on to the topic of Tarzan....the king of the jungle, and it was a white man. He beat up the local tribes and amazingly seeing as they had been there for thousands of years, Tarzan could talk to the animals, but the locals couldn't !!! Anyway, if we follow Ali's examples/advice, then surely it would have been racist to have a white man climbing an African animals neck ? As it is a proper racist story recently came up in relation to the same zoo. It included the grandfather of world cup winner Christian Karembeu, who along with others were put on display at the zoo in the early 1930s https://www.mopo.de/hamburg/zoff-um-hagenbeck-skulptur-rassismus-kunstwerk-mann-mit-giraffe-soll-weg-36988154/ https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/fussballer-christian-karembeu-tierpark-hagenbeck-soll-voelkerschau-aufarbeiten-a-8c958343-3e02-453e-862e-9a63a854b80c

I think, going on past experience, he needs telling quite a lot x 10

It is quite interesting that while Neil might have become the forgotten man of speedway, old John seems to remember him, and even more surprising is his grandson also has some knowledge of him, as i thought he also shared his grandfathers lack of interest in speedway or the modern, or in his case any era

Yes it gives his birth place in the Obit. Also seems he resided nr St. Louis up to his death

I didn't watch it tbh. The standard wasn't good and hardly anyone apart from the Russian riders has had any sort of training really, as an excuse. Zorn out injured as well lessened the quality. I am not disagreeing with you, as i myself find a lot of the racing tedious at times. But if you can watch the Russian final, which is normally the best or the GPs. Anything else is like watching a few GP riders up against 2nd league riders and a few novices thrown in to make up the field

Timmy Joe Shepherd i think was the guy at Hackney ? Not sure anyone ever said he was Canadian though. Think he did come from an unusual speedway area though, rather than California But he certainly wasn't born in the UK and returned as an American or Canadian, so not sure of the relevance here Sadly seems he died in 2013 http://www.pulaskijournal.com/obituaries/2013-obituaries

Who ?

One of the problems i see there, it sort of sticks out a mile for me, is you have used Swedish and British Final/Championships to judge them. And i would think the Swedish Championship during that decade was far weaker than the British final. Same, as i am not sure what relevance Swedish league averages would have. BL averages more so, and there for instance Morton is generally better. BLRC is at Mortons home track, so he has the advantage there But tbh it isn't something i am too worried about. All opinions.Even averages can show a false impression if a rider has been injured and came back or moved track and took time to get used to the new home .....

Same here. I remember being surprised that someone who looked so ancient was a sportsperson........ well i thought he should have been doing crown bowls or sheep dog trials with a pipe hanging out of his mouth instead of racing bikes

What I am trying to get at, is that certainly in the first two, if their career had been cut short you could make a fairly convincing argument that Adams would definitely be a world champion and that Gollob would have been a multiple world champ even the best rider the world had ever seen Possibly also with Crutcher that he would have won a title. I know once when I mentioned him here Phil Rising said Briggo rated Crutcher one of the best he had seen