PHILIPRISING

I'M old school on this one and liked the old tactical sub rule ... six points behind and any rider could have a tac ride. Puts a little more onus on team managers as well. Peter Oakes was a past master when managing Exeter to the British League title light years ago. Pulled off a nifty little manoeuvre involving Ivan Mauger at Wimbledon that had the home fans in uproar but created great excitement.

GOOD piece (okay, I would say that) by Kelvin Tatum in SS this week referring to the problems caused by the 'new' silencers... here's part of it When you have slick conditions you de-tune the bike for that but the problem you have now is that when the bike runs into grip and the revs drop, the power disappears and that means you have too much grip and the bike pulls too hard. And as hard as you try to hang on to it and as much throttle as you turn on, the engine wont recover quickly enough because of the lack of power that it produces at lower rpm. That is why you see so many riders getting off, it is as simple as that. They just cannot recover whereas before you had a much bigger window and when the bike got in trouble you could literally hang on to it, hold it flat out and the bike would get you out of trouble. You don’t have that safety net any more. The bike gets away from you. Look how violently bikes react now and in my opinion the new silencers have certainly increased the risks involved in racing.

BECAUSE they have four channels, no soccer right now, little else other than some cricket which doesn't always carry through to a Monday. Moving some RL matches to a Monday, as they do with soccer, seems logical. The decision about speedway will be taken at the highest level within Sky and right now the BSPA would probably not be able to tell them what is on the table for 2014 anyway.

WOULDN'T read too much into use of Wednesdays ... they are basically going to Wednesday night tracks away. And with so little live sport available keeping speedway away from Rugby League on Mondays makes sense.

AND an explanation of how they were chosen ...

HOPEFULLY Australia, Denmark and Poland will get to the Final and make that a reasonable contest despite the presence of the Czech Republic but you are right, difficult to get too excited this year. Wouldn't be surprised to see BSI and the FIM getting their heads together for a World Pairs event, maybe alternating with the SWC on an annual basis.

NOT too much live sport for Sky this summer so Wednesday seems to suit. Seems there was an omission at Birmingham on Wednesday and their coverage was all the better for it!

DOES it matter? Both will go through to the race-off and be eliminated there

CANNOT argue with any of that...

SUB copies are collected from Surbiton by Royal Mail around 10am on a Wednesday morning... normal mail collection is 3pm.

WILL ask the question ... thanks

NOBLE offer Humphrey and may take you up on that ... one day soon. It is more work than you might imagine (especially an App version, for example, which has to have the facility to be viewed in both portrait and landscape modes and requires the pages to be adapted) and we don't have people sitting around waiting for something to do. We are very keen to go down this road but, as I say, need to be confident it will prove viable. In the meantime, put your sub money to one side and await the call...

BUT right now we all have to watch the pennies. I am sure it will happen but we need to be confident of attracting enough NEW subscribers to make it viable.

AN online/downloadable version of Speedway Star is still very much on the cards but not as simple as you might think. Our production guys have their hands full as it is let alone converting all the pages, plus some additions, in time to go online on a Thursday morning. It is quite a time-consuming operation especially in the pages need to be viewed in both landscape and portrait versions. Then there is the cost of licensing the software, which has to allow us to take subscriptions. The one that currently ticks all the boxes for us and would be the most convenient to convert the printed edition would cost over £10,000 per year.

FOR the record, no time for a pee for Nigel and Kelvin ... they don't get a break for the duration of the meeting, however long it takes! The world feed is created by BSI, under the control of their own appointed director (Steve Saint) who is in overall control of the output provided at all SGPs by either the host broadcaster (as in Denmark, Poland, Sweden or GB) or other companies employed directly by BSI in places like Slovenia and Latvia.

IT was a compliment ... shows what can be achieved if you work at something as you obviously do. Speedway promoters should take note...

HUGE blow for the competition as a whole. Looks like Australia, Denmark and Poland to take on the Czech Republic in the final.

INTERESTING post ...

NO one could argue that Copenhagen and Stockholm are nicer places to visit than Vojens and Malilla but we are talking speedway here, albeit at the top level, rather than say soccer. Sometimes you have to go where the fans are rather than try to attract them en masse to somewhere else. I think I have seen just about every World Championship event (World Finals, Pairs, Team Cups, GPs) at Vojens and during that time there have been some great meetings. Not, I confess, always. But the track is a nice shape, has different racing lines, and can be very good. The weather is always a factor, however, no matter which time of the year meetings are held there and that always has an influence on track preparation. Hopefully, if the SGP does return there next year the meeting will be blessed by decent weather. That hasn't always been the case in Malilla, either, but they benefit from being a full-time speedway club with a huge number of volunteers on hand and the track equipment to match.

KEEP up Humphrey ... it isn't that Parken is needed for the Euro. In fact, they have turned down the chance to stage it even if Copenhagen's bid is successful. Stated that earlier. The fact is that without the support of Wonderful Copenhagen (Danish equivalent of Visit Wales) the cost of staging a SGP at Parken in front of around 20,000 fans isn't considered viable.

PERSONALLY find Copenhagen more expensive that Sweden ... certainly hotels, meals, drinks cost more than in Gothenburg and certainly Malilla (Holtsfred). My dinner on Friday which consisted of a very ordinary steak, a dessert and a glass of wine with service, etc, was around 320 kroner... about £40. ANd let's not talk about the bar bill ... four beers, two vodkas and tonics, over £100. Like the UK Humphrey, Danish people have less money in their pockets. Travelling to Copenhagen with fuel charges, etc (incidentally the Danes don't use euros), hotels has had an effect. Just possible that even Danish fans have tired of going to Copenhagen and that a change is needed. The crowd at Vojens last year was around 15,000 so a return there is an obvious alternative. The big problem is not the track, which can be very good - lots of riders love it - but the weather. And, as I said, noticeably how few Swedish fans were there on Saturday.

THE big question is what else would they do? Cannot see Gollob going into media, for example, and both he and Greg genuinely love riding bikes. Would they get wild card picks if outside the top eight?

SWEDISH attendance on Saturday was almost non-existent. Hardly surprising probably in view of the current form of their SGP riders. Also there is a feeling (endorsed by me!) that Copenhagen is a massively expensive place to visit, eat and drink. One Danish fan from Jutland told us that it now costs around 100 euros in toll fees alone to travel to and from the Danish capital. Have enjoyed SGP events at Parken, although the atmosphere there is very different to Cardiff. Not much at all after Pedersen and Iversen had dropped out of the reckoning, some fans left before the end and the Danish media hardly bothered with the Press Conference. Fans at Cardiff seem much more supportive of all the riders.

VERY much doubt that you would get 38,000/40,000 for British GP at any venue other than a fab stadium as you call them