waiheke1

and in other breaking news, i've heard a rumpour that Jason Crump will be retiring from GPs and will not be racing in Auckland. Can anyone confirm if there is any truth to this?

Very true oldace. Conversely, you could argue that in a GP riders will often settle for a "safe" 2 points or even one point rather than going all out for a win, if they only need a certain number to make the semis or final (much like in an inter-continental final). In the World Final it was generally "do or die." The riders you name Sidney I think would have made more world final appearances than they did, though perhaps not as many as you envision. Qualifying would not have been muh easier - finish in the top 8 when for a sizeable chunk of the era MAuger, Olsen, Collins and Michanek would have been shoe-ins for 4 of the spots- would have been very tough, and qualifying from outside the series tricky as well. However, the absence of a requirement to include "token" continentals (though the likes of plech, jancarz etc. would have been well capable of qualifying in their own right) would have freed up some extra places. However, in terms of placings, I'm not sure they would ahve done better than they did. Crump i think would have had one rostrum finish (75) - assuming that he qualified in 74 which would have been no guarantee-, Autrey would have been a strong rostrum propoect around 77/78, Louis at his peak may have pushed for a rostrum place though i'm not convinced he would have got one, Ashby/Boocock/Wilson i don't believe would have done. Crump I can imagine you envisioning being in the series throughout the 70s and 80s, but I think he would ahve struggled to get into the gps in the 80s (I'd say only 81and maybe 84 is there a case for him being in the top 10 riders in the world). do you mean that its easier to qualify from the gps than to be eliminated. Or also that this is a mathematical fact? If the latter, would you care to share the mathematical equation which proves this "fact.? It was Sidney. Are you one of those b@stards that's always ganging up on him and picking holes in his arguments!?! Though I agree with the point you and Bewitcher have been making, I'm not sure -this bolded bit is entirely correct. I would suggest that perception was based 90-95% on results, however 5-10% on other factors (style, manner of winning races e.g.. ability from the back, mitigating factors in results (e.g. collins finishing 2nd in the world final on one leg we might regard as an equal feat to winning it uninjured). Also, with young riders perception may be based slightly differently for example, a young andy smith didn't score many points initially in the BL, but it was still apparent tht he was quite a talent. I can remember Neil evitts being another who always impressed me in his early performances around hyde rd, even though he didn;'t score many. an example to me of how results influence perception is Steve Finch. I always thought he was a cracking rider, whenever I saw him ride for Halifax at eiother Hyde Rd or the Shay he seemed to score well - I reckon over the 83/84 seasons I must have seen him about 8 times, and he must have averaged around 7-8. However, his average for the Dukes over that peruiod was about 4. SO, I can imagine anyone who saw him race at a smaller track would have seen him as just a mediocre poor reserve. Same rider, different perception due to different results.

so do i parsloes. are we going to have to get out a measuring tape to see who has the biggest to settle this?

In fact "at the time" is surely tautological when used to follow "unprecedented"?

I just called to say i love you? what's your number sid so we can reciprocate?

Craven and briggs i believe both disliked the handicap. i can imagine heat leaders today starting off a handicap would want extra money to compensate for lost points and extra strain on machinery etc.

are u sure about this? have you e mailed sky to confirm? what do you think about cancelling sky if they no longer have the gps!

i think that is about right. Mort as I say I would class as around 10th in a list of best riders of the 80s. Riders I would consider to be somewhere 20-30 would include Les COllins, Doncaster, King, Schwartz, Shirra etc. I'd suggest that Mort would clearly rank higher than those riders, however not by a large margin. Les Collins and Doncaster I would rate as similar to Harris- perhaps slightly better at their peak, but overall behind him as they didn't remain near the top for as long. True to some extent. However, look at the list of riders who have won the inter-contiental final or the BLRC in that era, they are all class acts. In fact the weakest rider to win either was arguably Les Collins, who managed to win both! The BLRC and i/c finals were (IMHO) the second and thrid biggest individual meetings in the world in that era, compared to a GP which is one of 12 equally significant meetings. Personally, I woud rate a BLRC triumph slightly ahead of a GP win, a GP win slightly ahead of an i/c title (though I could see arguments for reatrranging those in any order). I also think winning a GP round can in no way be compared to an old World Final - the pressure is not comparable, though the flip side is that the field is stronger (no weak continentals) and riders have something to race for right to the end of the meeting. Anyway - I think we are in agreement anyway that Mort was better than Harris (relative to the era of course), I'm not quite sure how we even got here from discussing pros and cons of heat formats.

Weve been here before with pasloes and his mathematical facts. badically his claim is that as the top eight (or generally ten if you include wildcard spots) of fifteen qualify for the following year, it is easier to stay in than out. Essentially he confuses statistical probability with difficulty by his logic it was easier to qualify from the inter continental final than the contunental final or easier to qualify for champions league than to be relegated.

Firsty, I personally have never claimed that standard of speedway was higher in the 80s than now , nor would I- i don't think any such claim can be justifiably made. Hyde Rd I would class as a "fair" track - most good riders rode it well, poor riders would be found out. Harris I agree would have ridden it well. utter bollocks, we have been here before and it is nothing of the sort I agree with this however

Follow the link to their site and rules are there

i disagree. morts record in world finals was comparable to harris. however, his performance in ckub speedway was indisputably better. id argue his performances for england were also better, though that is hard to compare as harris has ridden in an era of a much weaker england team and in regular test matches. so looking at their overall records, i think it is hard to argue for anything other than mort being better than harris (realative to their eras). mort i think would be in or close to most peoples list of top 10 riders of the 80s. Could you say the same re harris and the 2000s?

not at all BWitcher. Morton was in the top ten of the BL averages every year from 80-86. Harris has never managed close to thsat in Poland/Sweden. Regardless of the actual average, Morton was consistently one of the to riders in the world in club speedway, Harris has never been. Also, Morton generally rode at three for the Aces, so met the opposing number one twice a meeting under the old format. His average also increased in 1988 (the year the designated heat came in), which makes him very much an anomaly. Of course, had the GP been run under the old one off format, Harris would have been in a run off with Hans Andersen and Nicki P to determine the title, there is no guarantee that he would have won that. Morton won the inter-continental and BLRC finals, both of which at the time had stronger fields than the world final, so to say Mort was never good enough to beat the worlds best is patently untrue. of course, its probably fair to say Mort underachieved on the big night, whereas Harris has performed pretty much to expectations. While the World championship is obviously the sport's main event (and I agree, their records here are very comparable) I think you also need to look at other meetings (club, internationals, other individual evernts) to get a total view. And of course, Mort ranks amongst the greatest ever team riders, something which no stat can really reflect. So, I'd stand by my view that Mort was, by a reasonable though not massive margin, a better rider than Harris. (Relative to standard of world speedway at the time).

in the nz gp - me neither over the whole series - i wouldnt be surprised, id be frigging amazed

My 50 for heat top scorer on lindback

just e-mailed the NZ TAB to see if they would be offering odds on the NZ Speedway GP - I got a very prompt reposnse, saying they would be putting up odds for the Indy Cars on Friday! Phil - next time you see Larry, can you ask him if he remembers getting christmas cards and regular letters from a young kiwi lad who was a regular at Hyde Rd. I remember being gutted when he left the Aces at the end of 84, though at least he didn't move far, itj ust meant I got more regular visits to the Shay and then Odal to watch what bcamse my "second" team to follow. And also, how he got the nickname Rangi (according to a S Star interview, in which he wouldn't reveal why)?

OK, can we justr agree: 1. Elite League now is a much lower standards than the old British League, relative to World Speedway standards 2. It is impossible (though fun to try) to compare riders of different eras in absolute terms. This is because our perception of riders is largely determined by how well they performed against other riders of their own era. So, if we are to say who was best PEter Collins or Tomasz Gollob, we are likely to look at their records to differentiate. This problem is exarcebated if you are to compare second strings, becuase we would likely have seen tehm ride less often (i.e. not in majpor individual meetings against other riders of a similr calibre, they would arguably be more likely to pperofrm well/poorly on particular tracks, less footage avialble of them etc). 3. Averages are useful in comparing riders against their peers. However, they are pretty much useless in comparing riders against riders of different eras, becuase of different race formats and inability (per above) to quanitfy in absolute terms the calibre of riders they were racing against. If you doubt how much race formats can influence riders averages, look at how ALL the top riders averages decreased in 1988 when the designated riders race was intriudced compared to 1987 (same pool of top riders, every single one of them decreased in average). 4. IT is a myth that all BL teams in the 70s/80s had three top notch heat leaders. Some teams did have as many as four world class heat leaders (e.g. BV team of the easly 70s, Cradley team of the 80s) - however some teams had only one (or even no) true world class riders. World Class - I would take as meaning one of the top 10 or s riders in the world at one time - Morton I believe from 80-84 was in that category, Harris I can't think of any year he would fall into that categorym, though he was capable of world class performances. C Morton was consistently in the top 10 averages in a league containing the worlds best rides, harris has never ahcieved that. At their best both could win against world class fields (see his BLRC and inter continental titles) as could Harris (GP title victory), though neither was ikely to be world champion due to their inability to gate. Mort however would have arguably been close to a rosturm place in 83/84 under a GP system, Harris never has been. Personally, I would class Harris as a "poor mans" Morton, with no disrespect intetnded to either rider. Having seen Morton race weekly at Hyde Rd, I also believe he was capable of moves on a speedwa bike which Harris is not capable of. Note, while I believe Mort was wold class, Harris "borderline", that does not mean that in absolute terms, Morton was better than Harris (though my opinion is that he was). Back to the topic, 13 heats vs 15 heats. TO me, the 13 heat format is the classic, its what I grew up with. However, it would be ludicrous (IMHO) to do away with the designated riders heat which is part of the 15 heat format. The key to me is that heats need to be got through quickly, a meeting should last no more than an hour and a half (something to be learnt from cricket here, in that T20 fits the requirements of a mdoern audience for something which is crammed into a shorter time frame to maximise viewing audicneces - the good thing for speedway is that it doesn't need to bastardise itself to do so, it just needs to get rid of the meaningless delays. For something different - perhaps 7 match races (7v7 , 6vs etc) to start the meteeting, each worth a point each, followed by either 14 (classic 13 heat, plus one nominated riders race) or 15 heats (current format) of team racing,I imagine this should still be able to be crammed into 90 minutes. Alternatively, a meaningful second half (points counted toward ELRS qualification?) - the issue I see with this is that come the second half of the year, only a certain number of riders would still have anything worth racing for.

a true great, an absolute speedway and New Zealand sporting legend. Hopefully he is well enough to get along to Western Springs and enjoy the GP this coming weekend. all the best for the future to Ivan and family

the whole north island is officially a drought zone, you arrive and it rains...typical bloody pom bringing the weather with you ;-) Not complaining mind u, our water tsnk definity needs the rain and rain is all thsts likely to save the kiwi boys in the cricket. Just hope it clears for saturday, after the incredible summer we have had , it would really suck if the weather contributes to a reduced crowd or spectacle on gp day

It wasnt live last year, it was shown in full the following day. Not sure whether sky uk dropping tbe rights affects nz? if it does, then maybe you will now be able to stream on the officicial site? you not making it along to western springs?

odds now up on ladbrokes and someother sites Based on last year's showuing, Hanocok, Gollob and Lindback all look good value. Vaculik looks good odds for an outsider, while KK, Zagar and even Tai look decent odds for an each way bet. DaRCY Ward 9/2 . Chris Holder 9/2 . Nicki Pedersen 5/1 . Tomasz Gollob 8/1 . Greg Hancock 8/1 . Jaroslaw Hampel 8/1 . Emil Sayfutdinov 9/1 . Antonio Lindback 14/1 . Andreas Johnson 20/1 . Niels-Kristian Iversen 25/1 . Martin Vaculik 33/1 . Fredrik Lindgren 33/1 . Krzysztof Kasprzak 40/1 . Matej Zagar 66/1 . Tai Woffinden 100/1 . Jason Bunyan 500

Ladbrokes also have had odds up for a few days, and a little more generous than those on oddschecker

This is an issue faced by all print media these days, even the daily newspapers. I'd suggest that a quarterly magazine runs the risk of being more out of date than a weekly like the Star. Agree - I think quarterly is porbably about right, weekly it would be going head to head with the Star, which would be no good for either publication, and I could only see one winner. I'm another who would be keen on subscribing, i miss the Star but not enough to pay postage to NZ each week. I would think the issue with USD should be very easily resolvable, in fact I can't see how this issue would even come about? Clearly it would be a struggle to make any money on a quartrerly publication charged out at 8 quid for a year. There are overheads and set ups which need to be covered just the same whether there are 4 issues per year or 52 - but if you don't want it, dont buy it. I think the best way to see how the publication is doing is count the number of ad pages in the second issue,. I know people complain about lots of ads, but for publications with a low circulation base, these often contribute more to the publications profitability than the circ revenue, and essentially "subsidise" the cost of the magazine (e.g. a 50 page mag with 10 pages of ads would need to charge far more than an 80 page mag with 30 pages of ads to break even).

clearly you never buy a book? Amazing that some people would pay decent money for what is just printed paper. The publishers would be better off putting a pdf up on the net and charging people 50p to print it off. Pass on that business model to to JK Rowling, I'm sure she'll be very grateful... Perhaps it says more about your ability to interpret information? If you think the game shown here is anything like Top Trumps then I can only take it that either a) you have no idea what Top Trumps is or you are not very bright or c) both I remember as a kid my favourite board game was Speedway Scene, I played that for hours, and that consisted of a laminated carboard board, about 50 "grading cards", three dice and four counters. The likes of top selling board games like Risk hardly have a lot in the way of sophisticated pieces - some cardboard and some mass produced plastic figures. Agree though that this is very much a niche product - i would think online would be the way to sell, perhaps a few copies in trackshops/games shops also. Advertising in likes of speedway star and online (targeting say facebook users who "like" particular speedwa groups). I think if the game is godd enough the target market would have no issue paying 15-20 quid.

i think it is a good idea in theory but.... i cant see how say a darcy ward or holder would fit it.into their schedule, nor whete the money would come from to pay there costs as they would no doubt want a decent sum if they were to treat it setiously