waiheke1

To be clear, I'm not saying gate postions were a major factor, or that the Champion would have been different. But gate postions clearly were a factor (one of many) and may have altered the destiny of the title (its obviously impossible to prove this either way) in some cases. Going back to 85 - five riders would have had zero rides of gate 1 prior to the interval - if for example gunderssen was one of them, would he have still been able to be world champion? Nielsen had the advantage of being off gate 1 for his toughest heat, whereas Moran's gate 1 was some what "wasted" in being in his easiest ride. The result may have been the same if the draw was different, or it may have been (Also, I think I got my stats wrong, and it was 8 out of 12 heat wins (and 4 second places) off gate 1 - but still, clearly a significant, though not insurmountable, advantage.) Anyway, my point is that in some finals the titles' destiny may have been altered by small factors such as gate advantage. That is not to take away anything from those that did win, nor to say that there were not many instances where one rider was so good on the night that they would have overcome any disadvantage. DJ was clearly not as naturally talented as Mike, nor was his equipment as good. But...in 1980 DJ won the British final, Commonwealth final, was unbeaten in the World Pairs final, top of the averages for England in the tests vs USA, top English scorer in the successful WTC campaid, SWAPA rider of the year... can you name a rider who was better than him in 1980? Who do you think would have won an SGP that year? DJ arguably missed out on the World title in 78 due to engine troubles, on a runners up slot in 81 due to engine troubles, and finished second in the World in 80 - what makes you say he was not good enough to win the title? I agree, he wasn't great around Hyde Rd (though I belive he scored 16 in a test match v USA in 81), and I didn't rate him that highly myself at the time - but when you look back he was a damn good rider. And, you say Phil Crump was better than Leigh Adams, and Adams better than N Pedersen - so effectively you're saying a rider who qualified for 3 World Finals is better than a rider who won the SGP three times !?! On what basis? I agree Crumpy underchieved in World Finals, but don't think he would have done better (in term of rostrum places) than one second place under a GP system (though he would have had performed solidly over a number of years in the 70s). I also don't think there's anyway he would have finished top 8 in any of the years in the 1980s, and thereofr edon't think he would have compared to Leigh Adams for either rostrum finishes or longevity at the highest level.

From the 80salone, world finals in which the draw may have influenced who won the title. 1980 World Final: only 12points scored off gate 3 all meeting. Dave Jessup, who was a red hot favourite, was drawn off this gate twice. He finished second. 1982: Penhall went looking for Carter (gate 4) from the first bend. Had Carter not been outside him its highly unlikely that he would have been able to do this, and that critical race could have panned out totally differently. 1985: 9 of the first 12 heats were won off gate 1 (the other three races gate 1 finished 2nd). After the interval, the gates were a lot more even. Sam Ermolenko, who was a rank outsider, had gate 1 twice before the interval (won both rides) and ended up in a run-off for the title. . Compatriot Shaun Moran was a hot favourtite for the meeting, won his first ride (off gate 1), but followed this up with two thirds off less fancied gates. Had the draw been reversed, who’s to say that Shaun wouldn’t have at least made the run-off? Of course there were other finals where the draw would have made no difference – for example, IMHO, Penhall in 81 and Muller in 83 would have won regardless of which gates they were drawn on. But, you can’t say it wasn’t a factor in at least some of the World Finals. Also in the 80s, World finals where rostrum places (or even World Champion)were affected by an engine failure or controversial refereeing decision (not saying decision was wrong, just that it could have gone either way) : 81 (Carter/Jessup/Gundersen), 82 (Carter), 83 (Nielsen), 86 (Knudsen), 89 (Gundersen). You could possibly add Jonsson in 88 to the list, or Nielsens’s unfortunate first bend crash in 85 where he dropped his only points when forced to use his second bike in the re-run. That’s not to say that the World Champions didn’t deserve that victory – they did - just that along with skill, determination, preparation, etc. to be World Champion you also needed a little luck on the day. To make it clear – I do not agree with Orion. However, plenty of people have come on here and said “bring back a real world championship” without presenting any argument as to why GP is not a “real” WC. At least Orion has presented an argument in defence of his view, and one which has an element of validity.

I'd suggest if you are the best rider in the world in a parti cular year, it is easier for you to win the GP than the one-off, as one bad rider/decision/engine failure wouldn't cost you the title. However, for anyone else it is likely to be easier to win in the one-off format. Why don't you think Jessup was good enough? Can you name a rider who was better in the world in 1980? I know he's commonly regarded as a bit of a "gating tart", but look at footage from the 1980 World Final, or the 1981 Overseas final, and you'll see he could pass - he just didn't need to at his peak as he was generally first away. I don't think anyone has claimed that the one-offs were "a lottery." Also, I'd suggest those riders are considered all time greats precisely because they won multiple world titles.

Agree 100%. The fact that the qualifying system for the GPs is not perfect is not a flaw with the GP concept per se, just as the qualifying system used for the old WC is not an argument against the one-off finals as a concept. (The fact is that there is probably no such thing as a "perfect" qualifying system for either).

from 74-90 though its a pretty valid observation (even though half full is an exageration, a third full is probably more accurate)

Parsloes, I do agree that any individual GP is not quite the equivalent of the old World Final (though the standard of riders is higher, and all riders have something to ride for right down to the final heat.) And I did used to love the old qualifying meetings – sometimes the racing was great, sometimes poor (just like any speedway competition), but always having that sense of anticipation about who would/wouldn’t qualify. And yes, the chance to cheer on riders from your club, other favourite riders or the occasional surprise packet (Paul Thorp's run in 86 springs to mind). I disagree strongly however that each GP is only the equivalent of a qualifying meeting – as every single point earned counts to becoming World Champion. IMHO, getting 12 meetings, all with a top quality line up and which all contribute towards who becomes world champion, is certainly an improvement in terms of a) exposure for the sport and giving speedway fans a quality viewing (if only they’d start televising it in NZ, instead of having to rely on t’interweb.) Yes, I did. Obviously in the 60s and early 70s they were competitive (on home soil at least). But in the 80s, riders qualifying via continental final averaged 4 in the World Final (compared to inter-continental qualifiers who averages over 9.) The true Eastern Europeans (i.e Russians, Czechs, Poles etc.) actually averaged even lower than that, as Egon Muller boosted that continental qualifier average quite a chunk. And also bear in mind, that the lowest possible average that they could have had was 2 (as they had to at least beat each other!). Has there ever been a less competitive rider in a World Final than Starostin in 82 (perhaps Kroeze in 87)?It was reminiscent of Mark Crang or Bill Barrett at their “best.” They did tweak the system for the world finals 91-94, where there were two semi finals. Continental riders constituted 8 of the qualifiers for the World Finals over that period, so an average of 2 per year, although only half of those were true “Eastern Europeans” (others being German/Italian). I would expect that had this been in place in the 80s the result would have been similar (most years would have seen Muller plus one other I would guess). And even with this system , they were given more spaces in the semi-finals (14 out of 32 spots) than they deserved on merit - had that not been the case I think you’d have seen at most 1 a year on average.

Actually that was the overseas final. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=RlFmm7zTA9Q The 82 inter-continental final saw Olsen and Gundersen allowing Petersen to finish ahead of them to earn him a run-off for the last spot. Off the top of my head, I also recall Ermolenko allowing Hanock to pass him in an Overseas final in the early 90s (though he was far less open than Penhall about it). Parsloes what you actually said was: Though to be fair, you did retract afterwards. But, as Iris states, no-one is saying that the old system was endemically corrupt, or the current system 100% pure. For my part, I raised this subject only because the current GP was accused of lacking credibility - whereas, IMHO, it has more credibility than the old system.

I guess the opposite of the thread "great rivalries", interested in the great partnerships that people remember. A few to start: Chris Morton and Peter Collins: Best team rideing pairing ever? Kelly and Shaun Moran: Spectacular pairing for club and country Phil Collins and Alan Graham: Backbone of the great Cradley sides of the 80s, as well as a handy pairing for England. Hans Nielsen and Erik Gundersen: enough said Pater Ravn and Jan O Pedersen: strongest reserve pairing ever (Cradley 83) Sigalos and Schwartz: Last pair to record a perfect score in the World Pairs Final, and a very strong pairing for the USA in tests Hans Nielsen and anyboy (1986): Went the whole BL without conceding worse than a 3-3 away from home. Andy Smith and Chris Morton/Peter Collins: Even more spectacular round hyde road than the Mort/PC pairing , as Andy (in the early years at least) was an even worse gater and certainly more wild in his efforts from the back.

Happy to acknowledge that – and hopefully you’re also willing to acknowledge that many believe ts a change for the better, Credibility problem – or visibility problem? Personally, I would have thought that the old WC, where you had riders throwing races to allow compatriots to qualify, to get a more favourable draw in the next round, or because they were being paid a bung to so do so, not to mention World Finals missing the sports’ biggest names, would cause more of a credibility issue . But, if you think certain people being selected to take part (common practice in many other sports), causes more of an issue, you are entitled to that opinion. I think there is one strong argument in favour of the old WC. And that is that the one-off final had a certain atmosphere, magic, whatever you want to call it, that the current GO does not have. I can understand that, and that’s a valid enough reason (even if finals were often tarnished by missing leading riders, porrly prepared tracks etc.) to be in favour of a return. However, I’ve yet to see any other persuasive arguments for it. Typically the arguments presented are: 1. It’s easier to stay in than to qualify. Except its not, is it. Do you think any of the three who came in through the qualifiers this season were capable of finishing in the top 8 of the GP? Really? 2. There are riders selected to take part. I agree, maybe there are two many spots. However, this has proved a more effective method of getting the best riders into the field than qualifying. Look at the record each year of the “permanent wildcards” vs the “qualifiers” and consistently the “wildcards” (with the possible exception of the “token Brits/s) have performed better. And lets face it, the awarding of one spot to the best British rider (determined on subjective, but nonetheless probably correct criteria) is hardly worse than the handing of 5 spots to continental finalists in the old system (Question: If Henry Kroezewas not Dutch, would he have ever qualified for a World Final? 3. The riders aren’t paid enough. True, I think we all agree with that. BUT, if you think riders were better paid in the old system, you are sorely mistaken. And its hardly just a Speedway issue that riders earn better money playing for their clubs than they do in the sport’s showcase event (think Football, cricket, rugby etc.) Its also not the fault of the GP that the Polish league has brought in their resttiction. If the BL back in the 70s/80s had brought in a “one World can be Finalist per team rule” you can be sure that any rider other than those with stong final prospects would have chosen their club contract. 4. Riders qualify the prior year. (I guess we’ll ignore the fact that the Australian Final used to be held in the yearof the World Final that qualification was for). I can see that this could be viewed as an issue to some extent. However, there have been only a couple of instances where riders who may have come close to the title have not been participating in that year’s GP event. Compare that to the old WC where at least every second year you’d be missing one of the leading candidates due to injury, one bad meeting etc. There are also plenty of examples from other sport where qualification occurs the prior year- footballs Premiership, Champions League, world Cup etc spring to mind – note Parsloes that the latter are both Knock out competitions. 5. GP is to blame for the demise of British speedway. I think the lack of foresight of the BSPA when times were good (and land was cheap) is the number one cause. Secondly, the fall of the iron curtain, which saw Poland establish a league which could afford to pay the world’s best riders more than the British clubs can, is the other key reason for the decline. There are many arguments in favour of the GP, but I think the three strongest are: 1. The best rider in the World wins the GP that year. I can’t think of any exceptions to this. 2. The riders competing in the GP are generally representative of the top 15 in the world (I’d say normally at least 12/15). This compared to the old WC where would suggest you’d only ever get say 8/16 of the World’s best in the final (I will give you 1981 as a possible exception to this rule). 3. Speedway has 12 World Final meetings televised each season – giving far more visibility to the Speedway and general viewing public. Personally, I think points 1 and 2 cannot be rationally argued against, and I think these two capture the essence of what a World Championship should achieve.

actually, its more like the top 17 in the premiership competing in the premiership the following season... imagine that, how ridiculous would that be

As opposed to the "good old days" when prize money was great. In 1980, I guess the last year of England's "golden era", the England team got 90 quid a piece as prize money! Dave Jessup would have been England's top earning rider over the World Team Cup, including points/start money he would have earned a total of around 200 quid for three meetings. Kenny Carter who was non riding reseve in the semi got paid nowt. I ndo agree though about reducing the teams to 4 riders, and using the format used in the late 1980s. Otherwsise, I think the current format works well, though I'd get rid of the bl**dy Joker. If you need something like that, you could make heat 20 (top socres race) worth double points? I disagree - although Poland/Australia would be favourites, on a good day all of Sweden/Denmark/England/Russia and USA (Hancock doing a version of 1983 Sanders) could all at least compete for a podium spot. Would be great see a return of the pairs (in addition to, not replacing the SWC). Hold it in one venue, semis Friday and Saturday (or even a day meeting and a night meeting on the same Saturday)and the final on Sunday.

I agree with Bavarian 100% - I think the current scoring system is spot on. Best rider on the night will get the most points, best rider in the final gets the title of champion for that round - best of both worlds IMHO. Irs123 - agree with you to some extent, but how often does a riders race number detemine qualification for the semis - once a season (this is a genuine question)? Simple way around that is to introduce addtional "tie break" measures - such as fastest winning time, head to head record against other semi final qualifiers etc.

I think Nielsen is one of the five riders who have an argument for being considered the greatest of all time – the others being Mauger, Briggs, Fundin and Rickardson. Nielsen wasn’t as naturally gifted as say Penhall, just as Mauger wasn’t as say Collins, but when you look achievements…there’s no question he is up there with the very,very best. I think if GPs had been in place in Nielsen’s era he would be regarded as THE greatest, however as it was I think he missed out on too many titles due to one bad ride (or lost run-offs) to be regarded as number one. However, I’d rank him above Olsen, who I’d put in the next category of riders – along with the likes of Gundersen, Penhall, PC x2, Ronnie Moore, Jason Crump - riders who are all time greats, but wouldn’t be, IMHO, considered as candidates for the all time number 1 spot. Somewhat strangely, I think Nielsen would have won MORE world titles than he did if Gundersen had not been injured – he seemed to lose some edge after that, whereas his performance in the 89 World Final was absolutely immense. I would disagree with Rob that Nielsen had overcome the edge Gundersen had over him – I think head to head in the finals 86-89 Gundersen had a 4-2 advantage- but despite that there is no question that Nielsen was best in the world in that period. Sidney – I think possibly the reason you don’t rank Nielsen as highly as Penhall/Lee was they peaked earlier in their careers– so when Penhall/Lee were at their peak (or even Carter/Sigalos) Nielsen was not. However none of those riders achieved the sustained excellence that Nielsen did, and which I believe is the true measure of an alltime great. There was a debate in the backtrack forum about best foreign rider of the 80s and I chose Penhall – however, I’ve changed my mind on that, and given Nielsen’s additional achievements in the 90s, I think he’s unquestionably the greatest of that era. Back on the topic of great rivalries – there was evidently a great deal of bitterness between the Collins brothers (some at least) and Kenny Carter. In his auto-biography, Alan Carter recalls being at a speedway meeting a few years after Kenny’s demise and making a comment along the lines of “Our Kenny sure could blow them away on the racetrack”, to which Neil Collins replied “Yeah, and then he blew himself away!” Ouch!

Yeah, knudsen was very good - strong parallels betweenhis and carter's careers. both had their best world final placing on debut in 81, both desperately unlucky with injuries, and both denied world titles by controversial -though prob correct- refereeing decisions after clawing with the eventual champion. both very good but I'd rate carter above knudsen

Eriksen was hard, borderline dirty, pretty sure it was him who put carter in hospital in the lead up to the 82 world final. On neilsen gundersen. I recall after the neilsen knudsen incident in the 86 final gundrsen coming out with a comment along the lines of "if Hans is going to race like that he should go into stock cars!" needless to say, Hans wasnot impressed!

yep, just over 10 minutes time in fact. $NZ50, bargain!

I'd suggest FIFA executives and associated companies are lining their pcokets far more than IMG! I understand what people are saying, but do we think IMG are making huge amounts from the GP (obviously they are making some). I understand that they pay a licensing fee to FIM, so maybe some of that money should also be filtered back to the riders. But, that said, I'm certainly not disagreeing that riders should be paid a fair "market rate" for competing in the sports' premier event. I certainly support that thy should be. But I'm not sure what the solution is - I'm not sure for example that there's an obvious alternative party to run the series which would result in a better deal for the riders.

OK, obviously there are a lot of people on the forum very anti GP and in favour of bringing back the old fashioned one off World Championship system. Now realistically, that isn’t going to happen, and there’s not enough room in the calendar to fit in both, or the GP riders would never turn out for British clubs. However, the idea of having both GP and a Individual Championship is definitely appealing, and I think you could make it work. I’d have it short and sweet, three qualifying “meetings mirroring the old style qualifiers, so you’d have an Overseas final (England/US/Aussie/NZ), Nordic Final (Swedes/Danes/Finns/Norway) and a Continental final (Poland/Czech/Russia/rest of Europe). Top5 from each to the World Final, with the remaining slot going to the National Champion of the nation hosting the final. Final to be rotated on a 5 yearly cycle between UK, Poland, Demark, Sweden and another European country (which could vary each “cycle”.) GP riders for that year would be “seeded” to the relevant qualifying meeting, with the rest of the places awarded based on each countries national championships. So, for example the Overseas final 2012 would include Crump, Holder, Ward,Harris and Hancock plus say top 4 from 2012 Brit final, 4 Australians, 2 Americans and one Kiwi. Nordic final would include Pedersen x2, Bjerre, Lindback, Lindgren and Jonsson, plus another 3 Danes, 3 Swedes, 2 Norwegians and one Finn. Continental final would have Gollob, PP, Emil and Hampel, plus say 4 Poles, 2 Russians, 2 Czechs and one each from 4 other European nations (say Germany, Italy, Hungary, Croatia etc). (Note: For above examples have used the 15 “qualified” for the 2012 GP). Hold the final a couple of weeks after the completion of the GP, and try to find some way of offering a significant financial prize for the winner. Hopefully this would satisfy the “old school” as well as fans of the current GP system. In terms of qualifying, if deemed better, you could reduce by 1 the qualifying spots from each meeting, and instead seed to the final the reigning World Champ, the GP champ for that year and the under 21 GP champ for that year (if the GP champs had already qualified, those spots could go instead to the best performed rider not having qualified). What do people think. Could it work, and would this satisfy those in favour of a return to the old ways?

Parsloes - this is the point I was replaying to. Note, you don't say its mathematically easier, you say its a mathematic fact that it it easier. Using this logic, it would be a mathematical "fact" that it was easier to qualify via inter-contiental final (11 places out of 16) than the continental final (top 5 out of 16). Clearly this is nonsense, as I demonstrated via comparing the performance in the finals of riders qualifying via various routes. To illustrate this one final time. If I personally entered the 100m in the Olympics, and had to finish in the top 11 out of 15 to make the final, I would have no chance of doing so. If I had contest a 100m event against 80 people who had to be aged over 60 and over 150kg, I would have a pretty decent chance. My point is that you cannot look at the number of qualifying spots alone and state that because one option is easier than the other, without taking into account the whole rangve of other variables which contribute to how easy/difficult that task is. Surely that is self evident!!?!?

ok, arguing that the continental final might have been a harder qualifying route than the inter-continental??? I don't think I can try rational discssion any further...

And in Emil's first GP season he finished 3rd, one place better than Mike Lee managed. Hardly a glass ceiling!?! It would be harder for a rider like John Louis now because I would argue the standard of the top riders is higher. Everything is more professtional, from bikes to diet etc. Its the same in any professional sport, that you just don't get people taking them up at the age f 30 and becoming an instant potential world champion. I'd suggest top riders can also stay around longer due to factors such as keeping in shape better (better knowledge of sports science etc) safer racing conditions and more confrotable transportation, rather than it being due to the GP system

Firstly, you can't really compare Speedway with Football, the money isn't comparable at all. Secondly, comparing with the premiership isn't really valid - premiership is comparable with club speedway, where riders are paid, from what i understand, reasonable amounts. A more legitmate comparison would be with the World Cup, where players are paid a pittance compared to what they earn for their clubs. Or the Olympics, where competitors aren't paid at all. However, what those events do is put competitrors in a global window, where if they perform well they can nail the big sponsorship deals, or big club contracts. Re Darcy Ward - unquestionably its a huge shame. But if the EPL put in place a rule that each side could have only say 3 international players, I'd be pretty confident you'd see a spate of international retirements.

Sidney, to clairfy the 100k wouldn't have been prize money, it would have been extra earnings from sponsorship, and being able to demand extra appearance fees, getting extra bookings for meetings on the continent etc. I've a book at home somewhere (1980 the Grand Slam or something similar), in which Ian Thomas bemoans the FIM pay rates at that time. And Mike Lee in 81 expresses that he was disillusioned with how there was less money there for a WC than he had expected. Addtiionally - I'd be pretty confident that today's World Champions do ok out of the sport, but again this is via increased earnings from other sources, not from picking up a huge kitty of proze money. End of the day, we need to realise also that speedway is not Formula 1, never will be, and hence the financial rewards will be comparitively slim.

Parloes, plenty of people have provided arguments for the current system, you just seem to ignore them. Finishing in the top 9 out of the worlds best riders is arguably a greater achievment, than finishing in the top 3 of "the rest." If you don't agree with this - who out of the riders who have "re-qualified" via this method for the 2012 GP would you not consider to be one of the top 15 riders in the world? In addition the wildcard system ensures that a) you can have representation from all the worlds main countries (including Britain!) and that the best or most promising of the riders who haven't qualified can still appear in the series. In the last 3 seasons, 2 wildcards (Emil and Jonsson) have made the rostrum, none of the "qualifiers" have come close. Noone is claiming the current system is perfect - I'd suggest holding the old school GP challenge, and reducing WC to two would be a better option Or alternatively, as someone suggested above, the qualifies should have a series of meeting to decide who took the three available slots (I don't think you could have too many meetings, or it would impact too much on the leagues, but I'm sure a decent system could be put in place) edit: i have no idea why the smiley face with sunglasses has appeared mid sentence above

Parsloes - so you do believe under the old system it was a "mathematcal fact" that it was easier for those qualifying via the inter-continental final to get to the final, than those qualifying via the inter-contintal final, because they had more places available?