PHILIPRISING

EVER since BSI axed the super prize payment at the end of a SGP series (cannot remember the final year) they have paid the riders a sum of money at the start of each year. Nothing new ...

FOR the past few years BSI have paid all the permanent riders a one-off payment around the start of the season ... nothing sinister about it. ONLY telling you what some riders are telling me... and there are still people who actually like the drama of the starting gate.

DON'T think cost of transponders is an issue as far as GPs are concerned but certainly would be across domestic speedway. I'm no expert (perhaps you are) but who pays for the people to operate them? And as I say, riders not convinced that it would be right just to have them at GPs when they would be required to change their starting rituals of a lifetime. IT is the FIM who determine prize money but only this week all the permanent SGP riders received a fairly substantial 'bonus' payment from BSI. Of course everyone would like to see the riders earn more but right from the outset of the involvement of BSI, initially through John Postlethwaite, he said that he would provide the TV coverage on which they could build sponsorship deals which would probably not otherwise be available. Works for some, maybe not all. BSI liable for what? Clearly the PZM were the organisers of the Warsaw event and it is they that are liable for any refunds, etc. BSI/IMG's lawyers would obviously not want them admitting liability for something which they consider they are not liable for. Whether or not I would support a breakaway from the FIM is immaterial but it just wouldn't work unless all other forms of speedway did the same and that is never going to happen.

DON'T think it is a case of blaming the riders. General consensus amongst the various parties involved is that a whole series of factors, none of which should have happened, conspired to bring the matter to a head after Heat 12. Lots of ifs and buts of course ... and the riders certainly had legitimate complaints about the condition of the track (although not as bad as they perhaps made out), the starting procedures, etc. If there had just been one problem the meeting would most likely have run its course but it was a succession of mishaps, ultimately the starting gate, that brought the house tumbling down. While green light starts are the defined alternative, as one rider pointed out it requires a very different technique to what they are used to. Looking back at TV replays Jason Doyle, who was excluded of course, can be seen looking to his side as he would normally do, then realising that he had to look at the green light ahead of him, probably panicked and let the clutch go. Serious consideration is once more being given to transponders but, again, the riders would need to have to adjust their starting techniques for just one meeting at a time, and the most important one at that, so perhaps not quite as straightforward as we think.

HAVE been told today that the material used for the Warsaw track was transported from the quarry in King's Lynn via Gdansk in February and kept in storage in Poland before being laid at the track on the Monday/Tuesday prior to the event ... which is the usual timescale. Also that the malfunctioning starting gate remains a mystery. Was tested several times on the day before the meeting and has since been taken apart and thoroughly checked with no apparent faults. The lack of a second gate, which was the responsibility of the organisers (PZM) and not enforced by the FIM has been noted. All the various parties involved (FIM, PZM, BSI, Ole Olsen) are still providing answers to the underlying questions but it is becoming more apparent that the condition of the track certainly should not have caused the meeting to be abandoned when it was.

A cork ... once asked a Kiwi taxi driver why some many NZ wines have a screw top bottle. His replied: "Makes it easier to open the bottle when you're driving, mate." Classic ...

NO, each venue has its own supply. The material is a blend which Olsen has specified after a lot of work with some labs in Denmark. At one stage, before the first GP in New Zealand, BSI were even contemplating shipping the material from the UK to Auckland. But after several trips to NZ and trials with various local mixes he came across a blend that worked. Which bits of the story don't add up?

NOT quite sure what detail you are referring to. The material used at Warsaw was indeed sourced in the UK, the same as is used at Cardiff, Copenhagen and Stockholm, and transported from Kings Lynn to Gdansk. The cost is around £250,000. the material is stored for future use. Humphrey has made reference to the ship used to transport the material to Poland as the ghost ship because there is no reference of it docking in Gdansk. I'm not sure that the name of the ship was ever officially revealed but I will enquire as to when whatever ship was used arrived in Gdansk. The material last used in Copenhagen has been in storage and will be used in Horsens. The material used in Cardiff last year was new and has been in storage in a facility nearby where it is being regularly monitored for its moisture content. Some moisture is, of course, vital. If the material was bone dry (which would be relatively easy to achieve) it would not bind. When you walk on temporary tracks they have a very tacky feel and are a little springy, like a trampoline which provides the grip that speedway bikes require.

NO it doesn't... what many of us are trying to point out that because of the venue and the whole package the British GP draws a far bigger crowd (more than double the last World Final held in the UK) than it would at any regular speedway track you care to mention.

IF there was no speedway racing it wouldn't be a speedway weekend would it?

OF course they can ...

THERE will be no let up, nor should there be in my opinion, in staging SGP events in stadiums like those in Cardiff, Stockholm, Melbourne and, yes, Warsaw. These events take world speedway to a new and exciting level and as previously stated the riders love them. Obviously even more effort needs to go into the tracks themselves and that will take place. It will, of course, be interesting to see the turn out for Cardiff this year. So far ticket sales have been up to expectations, even since Warsaw, but what I am sure BSI will be desperate to get across to those still undecided or likely to turn up on the day is positive proof in the days leading up to July 4 that the track is already race ready, tried and tested beyond reproach. I have always bowed to riders' opinion regarding track conditions. After all, what do I know? But like many on here have seen enough meetings over too many years to have a decent idea about what is safe or not and from my trackside view in Warsaw I have certainly seen worse. But then nobody expected me to go out and ride a speedway bike on it. However, I wouldn't say that the Warsaw track was as good as any, whether at Cardiff, Copenhagen or Stockholm. But it was far from the worse.

THERE is the world of difference between a poor track and a dangerous one. In all honesty, how many speedway meetings do we see these days, at whatever level, on perfect tracks? And what constitutes perfect? One that is ultra smooth and so easy to ride that riders, especially of the calibre of those in the SGP, don't make mistakes? Olsen says the easy option would be to pack the temporary tracks like concrete but they wouldn't provide much entertainment. Jason Crump and Greg Hancock have said frequently that the early indoor tracks at Cardiff were borderline dangerous but then greatly improved. I'm in no way suggesting that people who go to indoor events aren't short-changed and badly let down if meetings are cancelled. Of course they are. But for many the actual racing is only part of a bigger picture, a weekend away, the whole build up during the day, the comfort and atmosphere inside places like the Millennium, etc. I did enquire about Cardiff ticket sales since Warsaw and there has been no discernible let up. I still believe that if the starting gate had not malfunctioned and that either Ole Olsen or Tony Olsson had been Race Director (this is not a criticism of Phil Morris but he is new to the job and doesn't have, as yet, the respect that his predecessors brought to the role) the cancellation probably wouldn't have happened.

THERE was no delay in starting work. Before laying the track the metal safety fence has to be installed and that takes time

EXACTLY ... which I stated previously. It's a bit of a Catch 22 situation but, of course, the solution to that conundrum is to have the track right from the outset. Ole has told us that the track laying procedures at Warsaw were exactly the same as at Cardiff, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Auckland previously and to the same time scale. The material used is a special blend which has been scientifically tested to ensure that the moisture content is neither too high not too dry. However, all the evidence of Gelsenkirchen, Cardiff and now Warsaw points to the fact that if the moisture is too high, even in just a relatively small amount of the total tonnage, it can and does cause problems. Problems which are exasperated in stadiums where the track is laid on a concrete base and the ambient temperate inside is particularly cold, as in Germany and Poland, because it is nigh on impossible to get the excess moisture to the surface for it to evaporate. Using heavy equipment to roll the track just shifts the problem from one area to another. The only solution is to dig up the affected areas, turn the material over, and relay. It would appear that what is required is a better system of monitoring the moisture content of all the material as it is being laid to provide an early warning system as it were and to have some sort of equipment on hand to dry out any material that is deemed too wet. In Gelsenkirchen the then road-building sponsors of Scott Nicholls, who were there, said that when laying tarmac on a road the material is fed through a machine which heats it as it is being laid. Something similar might do the trick although such as equipment is not readily available for such an operation as laying a speedway track. Ole will be the first to admit that he got it wrong but if anyone who thinks he doesn't care or lose sleep over it is wrong. He and his guys, who include a Danish construction engineer with vast experience in road building, worked through the night in both Cardiff and Warsaw to try and get things right. They don't set out to produce a crap track as some on here like to call them. The track in Warsaw certainly wasn't laid too late. And had the weather been warm and the roof been open it might have been better. But it wasn't. All sorts of factors conspired to make the track far from perfect but question still remains over whether it was actually unsafe as the riders eventually insisted and gave the fIM no option but to cancel.

THAT'S true and there was no solution in Gelsenkirchen. But at Cardiff two years ago and in Warsaw they had practice on Saturday morning during which the riders gave the track the thumbs up only for it to deteriorate more rapidly than would otherwise have been the case during the meeting. But even at meetings where the track has been satisfactory at worst and excellent at best (and Olsen built indoor tracks have frequently been praised by riders at post-SGP press conferences) it doesn't alter the fact that practice takes a heavy toil although Ole would be the first to tell you that having riders doing some laps (though not as many as they have been) is useful because it turns the surface over which is then relaid and packed down again.

RICHARD is never slow to voice an opinion, as he did in Warsaw, but to suggest that he knows more about track building than Ole Olsen must rank as one of the most ridiculous statements of all time. Anyone would think that every track Ole has built has been rubbish which isn't the case. He has certainly got far more right than he has wrong and I have said until I am blue in the face that it isn't as simple as some on here seem to think. Tommy Rander is another who thinks he has all the answers except he hasn't. The material used in Warsaw was the same as in Copenhagen, Cardiff and Stockholm which have produced some good tracks in the past. One of the unique problems for temporary tracks is that generally they are at their best for practice, during which they take a pounding equal to a whole meeting. That obviously wasn't initially the case in Warsaw but there is no doubt that had there not been a full practice on Saturday morning conditions would have been better later in the day.

I suspect Richard has as much idea about building a speedway track as do I ... which is sod all.

And he would know that how?

I haven't said it is gospel just what the official explanation is. You and others can make up their own minds. As do I. Do I think the shape of the track at the Ratina is conducive to good speedway? No I do not. Would I like to see them change the shape of the track? Yes I would. Do I believe that making the track wider and shorter is possible? Short of digging it up myself and looking to see where the drainage is I can only ask the people who are building it and relay their answers. But you would have to ask why if there wasn't in fact a drainage problem and it wasn't practical they wouldn't change the shape of the track in light of what all the riders said last year. Why invent a problem which doesn't exist when the alternative would present the meeting in a much more favourable light?

BUT had he been convicted at the time? He still had his licence and was therefore free to ride. Said at the time and still do if he was free to ride then why should he or his clubs be retrospectively penalised?

BUT you don't actually know for sure that it is nonsense. Just because you don't agree doesn't necessarily make it so. Ditto you Humphrey...

THERE to be shot at but really just the messenger. Have just completed the programme for the Finnish GP and in every conversation we have had with the promoters still being told that drastic changes to the shape of the track are impossible because that would require disturbing the drainage around the soccer pitch which they are not allowed to do.

DO Monster announce what they are paying other events? KFC was a Polish franchise

I CAN say with absolute certainty that the SGP riders are very happy with the manner in which the series is run and organised by BSI staff. There is a huge volume of work that takes place behind the scenes, much of which makes the life of the riders far easier than it otherwise would be. They fully appreciate the level of professionalism that goes into staging these events. I have been attending speedway meetings for over 50 years, including just about every World Final since 1961, and it is chalk and cheese these days. And I don’t know of any rider who doesn’t relish riding in the big venues. The issue they have is when tracks, temporary or otherwise, are not up to scratch and they are quite justified in asking for the proper stage on which to strut their stuff. And, of course, sub-standard tracks are not just in the SGP domain (Rye House yesterday, Poole this season according to their own Chris Holder) And this is the key issue. Everything BSI handle and control themselves is almost invariably beyond reproach. The problems arise with the work that they ‘contract out’ which, of course, happens to be the most important component of the event. Imagine hiring a builder to construct a drive at your house and he sub-contracts the work out which proves to be inferior. The sub-contractors are at fault but, of course, the contractor is responsible. Also, many on here do not seem to appreciate that responsibility for much of what goes on at a SGP remains in the province of the FIM though their appointed Jury President, referee and FMNR representative and is not within the authority of BSI or any other of the various organisers throughout staging the season.