PHILIPRISING

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.

BELIEVE over 1500 tickets have already been sold ...

SO should the opinion of those "lots of people out there" defer to your view or not? It would appear that Ward has done what most people wanted by shutting up and serving his time. Perhaps at the very least the FIM should follow SVEMO's lead (with Lindback) and say that Ward will be tested for alcohol before any FIM event for the next two years at least.

YOU are being disingenuous here and I suspect you know it. FIM rules quite clearly state that if a starting gate malfunctions races should be started on the green light. Not a cause to call a meeting off. However, as soon as the riders said the track was unsafe it was a different ball game. The FIM cannot force riders to compete on a track they claim is unsafe even if, in their (FIM) opinion it is not so.

YAWN, yawn ...

FOR as long as I have known Tommy Rander he has always had an axe to grind with Ole Olsen (Swedes and Danes may be Scandinavian cousins but do not always make good bedfellows) and more recently Paul Bellamy and his comments in SS this week are his opinions rather than, for the most part, facts. For the record: no one from BSI or anyone else for that matter threatened the riders with fines. It is not within their jurisdiction to do so anyway. Tommy fails to mention that in 2003 when the GP in Gothenburg was called after three heats Ole had nothing to do with the track preparation but was called in to rebuild it for the following week when it was fine. Anyone who thinks that there isn't a massive investigation going into what went wrong in Warsaw is living in cloud cuckoo land. I believe there will be a meeting with the FIM, BSI and the PZM in Geneva next week. Also, there are a number of riders, including those at the top of the tree, who are privately admitting that had the starting gate worked the meeting would probably have reached its conclusion. It was the straw that broke the camel's back No one, least of all Olsen, BSI or the FIM will deny that the track wasn't perfect but, as Jason Crump points out in SS this week, indoor temporary tracks seldom are. It is and always will be a compromise and one, like Crump and Tony Rickardsson always said, is a price worth paying. Do you not think Holder, Doyle, Batchelor are excited about an Australian GP at the Etihad rather than Mildura? None of which exonerates those responsible for the problems in Warsaw, not least the lack of a second starting gate which, had it been available, might have saved the day. But don't expect any individuals being hung out to dry. The desire and determination is to continue at these big venues but to yet again work as hard as possible to build tracks that provide decent racing and a suitable stage for the world's best riders, which they have a right to expect. Okay, let the flak begin ...

WOULDN'T argue about the prize money but a good many SGP riders receive very lucrative (by speedway standards at least) sponsorship on the back of the TV exposure provided by the series.

IRRELEVANT whether it's BSI or OneSport ... cannot compare a World title with a European one ... as I keep telling Emil!

NOTHING like being World Champion ... don't think Red Bull sponsorship worth too much. Have an inkling, no more, after chatting to him over the fateful weekend in Warsaw that he might consider a wild card if offered for 2016.

PART of an interview with Kai Laukkanen, part of the promoting team in Tampere.. “The straights are a bit wider and there are more racing lines coming into the corners. It’ll be a lot more race-able than before. We’re really looking forward to seeing a lot more racing than last year. Last season wasn’t bad, but the track was a bit narrow at some points. “The banking is a little bit different now. The track is the same length. We’ve moved the fence outwards. There’s a football field and drainage in the middle of the track, so we can’t really make it much shorter. We’ve made it wider from the outside. “But it looks a lot different. We had a test day a few weeks ago and Timo Lahti was racing. We had a test meeting on May 2 for the Finnish riders and some of the Swedes. The track is good for racing now.”

IT'S not a public PA but one specially installed in the pits and essential in places like Cardiff where some riders are a long way from the track and like to be reminded when their next heat (or practice session on a Friday) is coming up. It is also used to call riders to the scoreboard for the semi final and final draws, to countdown the time they need to be ready for the parade, informed when grading breaks are coming to an end, and so on. Why is is it unprofessional?

ONE thing that hasn't been given much of an airing is the effect that Saturday morning practice had on the track. It was quite understandable that the FIM, PZM and BSI, let alone the riders, wanted to test the track, much of which had been relaid overnight from Friday. However, a full session even though riders now have four runs of two minutes instead of six at one and a half, is the equivalent of 24 heats. To the best of my knowledge there were few complaints about the track then which begs the question had there been no practice would the meeting have been completed without any track issues?

MOST of what I am telling you I saw with more own eyes or experienced myself. If people had been guilty of not testing equipment such as the starting gate, two minute clock, etc before the start then they would indeed be culpable but that wasn't the case. At all GPs there is a separate PA system for the pits which I use to keep the riders informed of various decisions, call them to briefings, and provide a minute-by-minute countdown to the parade, etc. It became apparent inside the Stadion Narodowy around six pm that on this occasion it was useless because against the stadium PA blasting out music and the noise of the crowd nobody could hear me. That's just the way it was. I am not sure who you (Barrycuda) are referring to about peanuts and monkeys. The bottom line is that had the track been fit for purpose even using the green light to start the races instead of the tapes would have paled into insignificance. It all mushroomed from there but no one sets out to be incompetent whatever they are being paid. I am still of the opinion that had the meeting progressed at a normal pace it may well have reached its conclusion but a combination of the various problems, allied to track conditions, simply proved too much for the riders to bear.

NO I'm not ... just trying to explain things as they were. Let's not forget that unlike Cardiff, Copenhagen or Stockholm, where the pits area is pretty well insulated from the stadium noise, communication was an unforeseen problem and just added to the many things that shouldn't have gone wrong on the night but sadly did. It was indeed a catalogue of errors.

NEVER been a problem before and the two-way radios used are about as modern as you can get. Even the telephone link between the pits and the referee's box was tough for either party to hear. Easy for people not there to comment but I have never known the ambient noise in the stadium to have such an effect on communications, especially as the referee's box was in the open. Just one of many things that on the night failed to work perfectly. I know you cannot resist pointing the finger at a 'professional organising company' but there are some aspects of staging a SGP that are ultimately the responsibility of the FIM although, as previously stated, no one could really have envisaged how tough it was until the event got underway. I'd love to live in your world where everyone gets everything right all the time.

Walkie talkies ... two way radios ... what's the difference? We do have radios with headphones but I'm sorry if I confused you by calling them walkie-talkies. Do you seriously think it would be better if officials sent text messages to each other? Lights, starting gates, etc., supplied by SpeedSport.

EXTREMELY ... it was actually warmer outside. The whole Doyle episode was very confusing. He clearly did move before the green light went out but it wasn't referee Jim Lawrence's intention to exclude him, only issue a warning. Something got lost in the communication to the pits and Jury President Tony Steele later apologised to the Aussie. I have a direct walkie-talkie link to the referee (via FIM SGP Secretary Graham Brodie, who sits next to him) and the race director and with all the noise reverberating around the stadium could barely hear a thing that was being said. It is the FIM who are responsible for testing equipment such as starting gate, lights etc (nothing to do with BSI) which was carried out numerous times during the day and again before the meeting. Somehow the gremlins got in but whether there it was due to the cold is conjecture.

TOTTENHAM'S head groundsman, Darren Baldwin, is a speedway fan and along with wife Kelly was in Warsaw.

NOT blaming the officials ... just answering a question about who ultimately determines whether a track is fit or not and officially calls a meeting off ...

FOR what it's worth, I think had the meeting progressed at a normal pace and not suffered so many interruptions, which allowed the riders' feelings to fester and for them to have a series of meetings, the event might actually have got through to at least Heat 20. The longer they sat around waiting for the starting gate to be fixed, frustrated and with growing anger, the more a rebellion became likely.

I'M sure Paul would have been instructed by his bosses not to say anything until the in-house IMG lawyers had been consulted. Standard procedure I imagine. It is the referee, along with the Jury, who ultimately determines the condition of the track. Not the Race Director, not the people who built it and certainly not BSI. OKAY, it was the riders who met behind locked doors and would only allow the Race Director, a member of the FIM Jury (Tony Steele), the CCP Director (Armando Castagna) and the PZM (Wojciech Stepniewski) into the room at various stages. It was the riders who were not prepared to talk to the media or even TV which is why none of us knew exactly what was going on although it wasn't hard to put two and two together. The PZM actually held a press conference later but few of us knew it was taking place.

WHAT meeting are you referring to?

I imagine he is referring to comments made in the Polish press and the PZM ...

Jury President Tony Steele, referee Jim Lawrence and FMNR representative Andrzej Grodzki but Armando Castagna and Tony Olsson (all members of the SGP Bureau) were also on hand.

THAT'S far too simplistic. They obviously think he is the best man for the job, having produced far more good tracks than bad ones. But it certainly might be time for a change, although I doubt whether there are people lining up to take over. STATEMENT from BSI ... Statement from Paul Bellamy, managing director, BSI Speedway: I would like to apologise to all fans in the Stadion Narodowy, Warsaw, on behalf of BSI Speedway. We are terribly disappointed with how events unfolded on Saturday. We respect the FIM Jury decision to call the result after heat 12 due to the track conditions. A lot of the information reported in the media is inaccurate. We will require a full investigation on what happened from all concerned and will communicate the results once completed.