waiheke1

allright, only about 6 weeks to go. Anyone coming over for this? Any word on when the wildcard will be confirmed? Rumours seem to be that Troy Batchelor may be in line rather than a kiwi representative (Bunyan and Wells are the other names i've heard mentioned) Much as I think Bunyan was the right choice last year (and performed very creditably), I'd be much keener to see Batch this year. And does anyone who knows about such matters know if the incredible summer (hot and dry) we are having will potentially impact upon track preparations if it continues? I know its a totally different surface, but i've heard the car racing at the Springs has been pretty dull this season with very little passing due to the track.

Agree vaculik and possibly jonsson look good value for an each way. Hampel @ 12 possibly the best value to win - the longest odds out of the seven riders i can see as potential champions

Holder emil and pedersen top three for me (not neccesarily that order). that darcy ward might go all right too. What about picks for riders u think will struggle? kk zagar and tai the obvious ones but will be some big names struggling to make top 8. Quite possible no swedes making top 8?

Yeah, I can understand that, as an Aces fan that's how I view Andy Smith, a true Hyde Rd product right down to the shambolic gating...

Intertested you've got Tatum ahead of Simmons Sidney? Simmons was the main man for Wimbledon in the early 80s, wheras Tatum had just his initial two BL seasons for the Dons - actually surprised at the number of people who have Tatum in their teams, as while he was obviously a great young talent, he didn't actually achieve that much in Dons colours. Replace Jancarz with Ross and that would be my team Rare occasion, but I'm in agreement with you here Parsloes. No right or wrongs in naming this type of team, so long as you can give some sort of justification for rider's inclusion I don't think anyone can disagree this however, is utter bollocks!

Hampel BUY 8 NKI BUY 2

Sweet, thanks tnt. you may want to edit your podt ecplaining the rules as that states picks cant be chsnged before the nz gp.

Do you have to buy one rider and sell one, or could you buy two? am i reading correctly that once picks are made no changes are made (i.e. if u make your pick now and your rider picks up a pre season injury u are stuffed)?

How have you worked out these stats? must say i found it perplexing that you could rate carter - three finals no top 3 finishes - ahead ofxlee, who finished on the podium three times. i then noted that carter hsd a hifher points per final record than lee which i thought could explain it- though this would seem a slightly simplistic measure- but lee had a higher average than peter collins who nade your list? also, how did u compare scores/results from gps (and various formats) vs old style finals?

In his auto biography Briggo reckons he would have won the world title in 1984!!! had he not tinkered too much with his bike prior to the 1984 NZ Champs (where he finished fourth, a couple of points shy of what he would have needed to grab one of the two qualifying slots). He reckons had he qualified, he would have had the bike set up perfected in time for the overseas final, and on the revolutionary laydown he had invented reckons he would have had too much speed for his rivals, and even at that age been world champ. he also reckons that the laydown egine, when ultimately adopted in the 90s, has been one of the worst things for the sport, in terms of driving up rider costs.

i've got programmes/speedway stars from the 80s lamenting the decline of speedway, so it must have started in the 70s or earlier. causes mentioned back in the 80s were slick tracks/poorly prepared tracks which didn't provide exciting racing, too many mediocre foreigners, people having less money/competing attrractions etc. - pretty much the same complaints as today! I guess in terms of the British League being the number one one world speedway, the fall of communism and rise of speedway (and presence of money in speedway) in POland was one fo the main factors. 1980 was i guess the last year that England was a superpower of speedway, grandslam winners, then of course the following year i believe it was either the SCB or the BSPA made the brilliant call of refusing to allow Peter Collins to ride either for England or in the world championship as he was takeing a year out from British domestioc speedway, Mike Lee started to go off the rails, and arguably never since have England/GB been the sports leading nation. Of course the decicsion in the early 70sfor Great Britain to mean just that, rather than includign the commonwealth nations, was also a pretty big factor, if the Aussies raced for Team GB of course GBwould still be a super power with a reigning world champion. in terms of crowd attendances, i'm guessing speedway has technically been in decline since the end of the boon post-war years of the 40s/50s? and as someone eslse has already mentioned, tvs becoming a standard household feature (rather than a rare luxury) was porbably a significant factor in declining attendances. Its not all doom and gloom though - last seasons's GP series was superb (IMHO) in terms of the quality of racing, and the 2013 series has arguably one ogf the great all time lineups, personally i can't wait for it to kick off MArch 24th at Western Springs

Huxley, Duggan? Interesting reading Briggos autobiography, saying that he reckons Crump snr would have been world champ in 75 if he'd done it right - reckons he should have used the four valve for the first month of the season where he cleaned up, and then kept it for the world final. The psycholigical edge of the riders not having beaten Crump while he was on the 4 valvve he reckons would have given him the edge to take out the title.

Holder now one of the top 5 Aussies of all time?

Jonsson, Jan O Pedersen and Ermolenko were three superb riders who did race Hyde Rd, however all peaked after Hyde Rd closed, and while all rode it well, I don't think any were true Hyde Rd specialists. Briggs for me would rank below Mauger, Rickkardson abnd Fundin. On a side note, just finished reading his auto biography which is a superb and very intersting read.

in 2012, 10th place finished with 69 pts, 15th with 57 points . I would say scoring 57-69 points would class as "about the same" as Harris's 65 points. So, I thinks its perfectly feasible he'll score about the same as Harris and still end up 14th. Who will he push back to 15th - on paper he's probably the worst rider in the field, but I think someone has to end up disappointing (akin to Bjerre last year). If I had to pick a name I'd say Zagar or KK. Even if Tai doesn't finish last, I don't think he'llbe disgraced. To reiterate, my view is that if any of the major Speedway nations (I'd class these as being Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Australia and possibly Russia) failed to have a qualifier, then I'd be fine with them receiving one of the wildcard slots so longs as they had a rider of international quality and it wasn't at the expense of a genuine title contender.

i said if he makes the top 12 he will have done well, not that i expect him to make the top 12. tbh i think he'llfinish 14th, though not sure who will be last.

I don't understand why so many Brits are anti Tai -he's the best prospect you have at present - I'd suggest the only rider you have potentially cpaable of finishing top 8 within the next few years. Yes he's been given the spot because he's British, but if there was no Pole, Swedish, Danish or Australian rider qualified, I'd be fine with them being given a spot too. It's not like yester year where you'd have 5 sub-standard Continental riders given spots (or 4 plus Muller who was class) - this is one spot, and Tai is not far (IMHO) from being one of the top 15 riders in the world. How will he go - tbhm, I think he'll score about the same as HArris did last year, but in what is a much stronger field. I'd expect a couple of semi final appearances, and if he makes the top 12 he'll have done well. Hopefully in 2014 he'll be able to make a genuine push for top8 and qualification in his own right.

Viktor Kuznetsov scoring 10 points in the 1986 World Final to finish 5th. He actually scored a maximum (it might have been paid) - and it was his first BL outing of the season! Not sure this was that big of a surprise - Finn was always an enigma, so the fact that he managed 4 good rides out of 5 (as opposed to 1-3 good rides out of 5) wasn't hugely unexpected. That 84 Cradley side was still a damn good team - 4 world class riders (all of home rode Hyde Rd well) in Gundersen, King, Collins and Grahame, a good second string in Simon Cross, the enigmatic Finn Jensen and Stephen Collins (who it's fair to say was rubbish).

Briggs to my mind is one of the five post -WW2 riders for whom a real argument could be made that they were the greatest ever (othersbeing Mauger, Fundin, Nielsen and Rikkardson). I would have loved to see him around Hyde Rd. The meeting I would love to see would be an individiual meeting at Hyde Rd with the following line-up (excludes those who never rode the track, though obviously would have loved to see the likes of Ward, Gollob, Crump Jnr, Emil, Holder racing that hallowed track): Mauger, Briggs, Moore, Ross, Morton, Collins, Carter, Parker, Craven, Olsen, Gundersen, Nielsen, Penhall, S Moran, Fundin, Crump snr. That would be some meeting I reckon.

.Going back to the original question - is this the strongest line up ever? Two ways I reckon you can look at this. Firstrly, in absolute terms. Obviously comparing between eras is impossible – much as you can debate whether Olsen was better than Gundersen was better than Pedersen, it’ s always going to come down to opinions. And you can often only really appreciate the quality of a field in hindsight – for example, Rob points to the 95 GP as being incredibly strong, but partly that view is because we know what the likes of Crump and Gollob have gone on to achieve. 1981 was unquestionably the strongest line up of the 80s, but at the time of the final it contained only 2 Word champions (Lee and Olsen) – of course it also contained the 4 riders (Penhall, Muller, Nielsen, Gundersen) who would win the next finals, 3 others (Carter, Knudsen, Jessup)who would have ben champion had luck gone for them rather than against them on final day , and 3 other riders who were genuine world class at the time (Morton, ANdersson, Ross) – so only looking back do we really appreciate how strong that field was. Looking at todays’ field it looks very good, but until we know what the likes of Ward, Emil and Holder go onto achieve, we ‘ll be somewhat limited in our perspective. That said, with 4 world champions in the field, Ward and Emil who if they fulfil their potential will be regarded as all time greats, 2 others who have appeared on the podium (Jonsson, Hampel), others who have been good enough to win individual GPO (Lindback, Lindgren), while the rest are all top riders, it is certainly right up there. The second way to compare strength is to look at what proportion of the world’s top 15 riders are in the field (or who is missing). Now, the line up isn’t as strong as it could be – you’d probably replace Tai with MJ, and maybe Zagar and KK with G Laguta and Kolodisez , but these are pretty minor changes. The line up isn’t missing anyone that you’d consider to be a strong rostrum prospect. Tai has been derided on here, but he’d still be in the top 25 in the world. Has threr been another World Final/GP series where the worst rider was still in the top 25 riders in the world? Compare that with say the world finals of the 80s, where you had the likes of Starostin, Kroeze, Ondrasik etc. in finals, none of whom would have been in the top 50(or even 100) riders in the world . Those world finals also routinely were missing riders who would have been amongst the favourites had they qualified – Mauger and Olsen in 80, Gundersen in 82, Morton and Carter in 84, Carter again in 85, S Moran and Wigg in 86, Jan O in 89. Were those riders missing because they weren’t good enough – no, they missed out due to one bad meeting, getting injured at the wrong time, and a qualifying system which gave a much easier qualifying route (based on nationality ) to a pool of sub standard riders ( if you exclude Muller, riders from the continental final averaged around 4 points per final, 2 of which were earned from beating the other continental riders). My opinion –next year’s line up is one of the strongest line ups of all time, and in ten years time it may be viewed as the strongest ever.

twk . i know you dont believe the qualification system is fair. But what is it about the format of the gps themselves that you think is unfair?

Sam ermolenko at odsal in 85. scraped through qualifying, not racing in the UK, only about a 7pt man in bl the previous season, world final debut, and only missed out on the title in a run off.

And before you say darcy ward, he turned down the chance last season, one would suspect due to the polish one gp rider rule and his " other issue", not due to a lack of desire to be world champ or a flaw in the gp system Sorry that comment was in response to blazeaways question a couple of posts up, can't work out how to quote on this phone

but i think the wild cards are a better way of ensuring the strongest field, if u compare the performance over the last few seasons of qualifies vs wildcards i think thecwildcards would have outperformed them overtime, even with the token brit pick

Flying shale is an excellent simulation game i believe still available online from roo games. it is based on the speedway scene board games