waiheke1

Humphrey, you make valid points. However, I'd expect that the sponsorship rewards possible for the GP riders, given that they are in 11 televised world final events must be greater than for riders in the old world champs? also, if you were an english rider in the 80s, you'd race in 5 qualifying rounds plus the final, in addition maybe 8 test matches, possibly a couple of World Pairs meetings and a few WTC meetings as well - so I'd argue you would have missed more league meetings then than now? And of course, there wasn't the option of riding in multiple competitive and rewarding leagues. Raising sport "to a new threshold" sounds like pure marketing speak i have to say - but i reckon there's an excellent product, and the fact that the top riders compete against each other so regularly has to have improved their quality (some may argue this is a bad thing in increasing the quality gap between those in GPs and those outside).

is this based on any sort of reliable source (nothing posted on this topic to support this), or simply speculation by the anti-GP brigade? only seem to be two named riders (DW/PP)of those in the 15 expected not to accept their spots based on what i can see on this thread (and others). So would seem to be a worst case 13 riders, but I'd be pretty confident that two replacements will be found.

true, you could have made arguments for both those riders, also I guess Mauger, though I'm not sure any of them were better in that year than any of the other riders who qualified via th inter-continental final. i guess 81 was less obvious than off the top of my head say 80 (reigning champ MAuger and also Olsen), 82 (Gundersen, ), 84 (Carter, Morton), 85 (Carter), 86 (S Moran, Wigg), 87 (S Moran) 89 (Pedersen, S Moran).

<unnecessary quote of previous post removed> Yes, its a shame Darcy won't take part. But that's the fault of the Polish league surely, not the GPs. If the British League had put a restriction on the number of World Finalists per team, its quite likely Peter Collins wouldn't have entered until he thought he had a genuine chance of winning - after al, league seedway was always the "bread and butter" of a riders earnings. Emil finished on the rostrum in 2009 as a 19 year old. Hampel is still in his 20s and has finished on the rostrum the last two years, so its hardly just the golden oldies fighting it out? Its also a cyclical thing - at the moment, you happen to have a core of riders who are the best in the world and hapen to be in their 30s. In 2 or 3 years I expect you'll see younger riders such as Holder,Emil, Ward and Hampel dominating the fight wfor the title. My point about continental qualifying was in reponse to one of your arguments against GPs, namely that qualifying is not a "level playing field." Yet, you are now justifying some riders getting an easier qualifying route unde rthe old system. So, should all riders have an equal qualifying route or not, it seems you are saying its wrong that the GP doesn't, but it was right that the old system didn't? FWIW, I agree that the continental riders desrvced some represenation (though not as much as they got), just as I would defend the inclusion of a Brit Wildcar on the GP system. Yes, the Fooball world Cup includes dome teams which have no chance of winning. But when was the last time that a team with a genuine chance of winning didn't qualify? France in 1986? Compare that with the one-off Speedway Champs, where you were missing a genuine contender from the final practically every year! Regarding the maths. So, you believe then that it was a mathematical fact that it was easier to qualify from the inter-contiental final (top 11/16) than from the continetnal final (top 5 out of 16)? But you just acknowledged that the continental riders has an easier qualifying route? You seem to be contradicting yourself there. It is simply not correct to say that it is a mathematical fact that it is easier to stay in the GP than to qualify. (You could say, that for a randomly selected rider currently in the GP, the statistical probability of them qualiying for the next GP is higher than that of a randonly selected rider from outside the GP. But to argue that one route is mathematically easier than the other would require a highly sophisticated algorithm which took into account all sorts of variables). End of the day, its pretty much like the difference between the Premiership and the FA Cup. The FA cup (like the one off WC final)always has the possibility of a romantic, surpirse winner, and the final is always an occasion, even if the game itself is often anti-climatic and missing the best teams. The premiership winner (like the GP)may be decided before the final weekend, but there is still excitement elsewhere in terms of who makes the european slots (rostrum) and avoids relegation (makes the top8). The winner of the Premiership is almost always the best team, and no-oine would for example that Man Utd didn't deserve to win the league, just because they didn't have to beat say Aldershot in doing so (and no one would argue that it was unfair that Aldershot didn't take part in the Premiership because they hadn't won promotion the previous year).

"speedway gp in tatters"... except its not really, is it? So a couple of riders have opted out (or are likely to opt out). We still have say a dozen out of the world's top 15 riders competing, and no one is missing that you would expect to be genuinely challenging for a rostrum spot (yes Ward is quality, but not sure you would expect him to do much better than Holder managed in his first season)? Compare that to the old "one-off" World Finals, where you might have say 8 of the top 15 riders competing, and invariably be missing at least one leading candidate for at least a podium sport (from the 80s, I can think of only 1981 where this was not the case). All the GP haters seem also to be seizing on the fact that the financial rewards for riders in the GP arent great. But back in the "old days" I recall Billy Sanders contemplating not entering the World Champs, because he reckoned unless you finished in the top 3, it wasn;t worth competing (from a financail point of view). Mike Lee in 1981 said that one of the reasons he lost motivation with speedway was because the financial rewards he thought would be there for a World Champion didn't eventuate. And countless riders complained about losing money riding for their country in test matches or World Cup events. Ward I'm sure will enter the GP the next year (2013) , and no doubt do well. Yes, it's sad he's not likely to compete next year, but its hardly the end of the world.

I'd say he rates below all time greats Craven, Peter Collins and Mike Lee. I'd put im in the same category of great British riders such as Havelock, Loram,Louis, Simmons, Jessup, C Morton etc. You could put equally valid arguments (IMHO) for him ranking above or below any given rider in that category. And I'd rank him above very good British riders such as Tatum, Les Collins, Doncaster etc. In terms of the discussion on natural ability. The great Ivan Mauger himself points out that he (MAuger)didn't have the same natural talent of someone like Peter Collins, but that noone did more practice than he and Ole Olsen, and that's why they achieved more World titles than someone like PC, who because he could rely on natural ability never put in as much work as they did. You could apply the same to the likes of the Moran brothers who were as talented as the grear Danes of the 80s, but achieved nowhere near as much. You can argue or or against the natural abiliy of Carter, but one point to note is that while his form tailed off after 82, that could be linked (according to both his biograpghy and his brother's autobiography)to both injury and that he didn't have a proper mechanic from 84 onwards I think. To be World Champion, you need the blend of natural talent, hard work, good equipment, to stay injury free and a bit of luck at the right times - I don't think Kenny ever had all of those at once , but that's not to say he would never have been World Champion if not for his untinely demise . In 85, he was racing almost as well as ever (British Champ, overseas runner up, dropped only 1 point in world Pairs final, 10pt+ average)- so I certainly don't think he could have been written off. on the 81 World Final, as seems to have been some discussion on that. If n-one had suferred engine troubles, then heading into the final 4 heats standings would probably have read Penhall 12, Jessup 11, Carter 10, Gundersen 9, Knudsen 9, Olsen 7. All speculation from there, but I suspect Jessup (who had only beeen beaten from the gate by Penhall all night) would hav beaten Knudsen, and needing to win the final I think Penhall would have beaten Carter. Which would likely have left Carter facing Gundersen in a run off for 3rd, which would very much have been 50/50 who would have won (though given gundersen's later record in run-offs I'd lean towards him). And, around Hyde Rd I would rate Kenny Carter as the best British rider I saw in the 80s, just edging out Chris Morton (the two had about a 50/50 head to head record in league matches, but I'd go Kenny on the basis of his two BLRC). Was he as good as Mauger/Olsen/Collins at their peak, impossible to say, I supect not, but given we are talking absolute all time greats on a track which would rank amongst their favourites that is hardly a criticism. For what its worth, PC was still pretty handy around Hyde Rd in the 80s, but I don't recall ever seeing him beating Kenny in my time (81 onwards), possibly once the Northern League Riders Champs.

I loved the old individual finals, as well as the cut-throat qualifying meetings, but don’t think you can deny that the system achieves the aim of the Worlds Best rider winning in a given year, and having a field which contains at least the top 12 riders in the world in the field. Parsloes – I’ve responded to some of your arguments, have tried to give rational arguments, would be interested in your response. So Mauger winning in 79 was bad for the sport? Fundin and Nielsen being strong candidates for the WC into their 30s was bad for speedway? How exactly is it bad? and like Collins and Lee, Darcy would have been a world finalist as a teenager..except he turned down the opportunity. If Lee or Collins had turned down their opportunity, they wouldn't have been world finalists either. Given that he couldn't qualify for the GP challenge (i.e. final 16) even without the presence of the top dozen riders in the world, I don't think he would have done. That's not saying he's not one of the top 16 riders in the world (I belive he clearly is), but one of the flaws with the old WC system is that many of the world's best missed out on the final. This isn't a mathematical "fact" at all. Just because the riders have to finish in the top 8 (or even 11) out of 15 to stay in, doesn't make it easier than finishing in the top 3 out of 80 qualifiers. If that was a "mathematical fact", then it would also be a "fact" that is it is easier for riders to qualify via the qualifiers(finish top 3 out of 80,) than it is to finish on the rostrum of the GP itself (finish top 3 out of only 15). Or from a different sport, easier to get promotion from the Championship to Premierleague (finish top 3 out of 24) than it is for a premier league to qualify for the Champions league (top 4 out of 20). None of those are “facts.” Lee and Moore certainly, but I believe they were the exception rather than the rule. Peter Collins made one World Final as a teenager, didn’t finish on the rostrum in any of the qualifiers, and finished 12th in the World Final. Was he therefore more of a contender as a youngster than Emil is in the GPs, or than Darcy would have been if he had accepted his place? In the 80s I believe there was one rider (Knudsen) who made a rostrum as a teenager – so the WC was hardly dominated by teens at anystage. In the 60s and early 70s the continental riders deserved their places, at least on Eastern soil. But look at the 1980s. Riders via continental qualifying took 50 out of 160 slots(31%), yet achieved only 1 rostrum finish (3%) and one World Champion (10%). Below is how they did year on year. Continental Qualifiers Year R Pts PPR Ave 80 25 15 0.6 3.0 81 26 23 0.9 4.4 82 25 22 0.9 4.4 83 25 28 1.1 5.6 84 23 15 0.7 3.3 85 25 14 0.6 2.8 86 25 24 1.0 4.8 87 49 35 0.7 3.6 88 25 22 0.9 4.4 89 25 20 0.8 4.0 Total 273 218 0.8 4.0 Inter-continental Qualifiers Year R Pts PPR Ave 80 55 105 1.9 9.5 81 54 96 1.8 8.9 82 55 98 1.8 8.9 83 55 92 1.7 8.4 84 57 105 1.8 9.2 85 55 106 1.9 9.6 86 55 96 1.7 8.7 87 111 205 1.8 9.2 88 55 98 1.8 8.9 89 55 100 1.8 9.1 Total 607 1101 1.8 9.1 I would suggest this proves it was a “fact” that they benefited from an easier qualifying route. Do you believe (and this is a matter of opinion) that Mauger wouldn’t have qualified for 1980 ahead of Petr Ondrasik, or Gundersen ahead of Starostin in 82, or Carter ahead of Adjoran in 85, if the qualifying routes were the same. I believe they would have done, I also believe the final would have been better for the inclusion of these riders who had a genuine chance of winning, rather than riders who had a genuine chance of scoring a couple of points. Even when the qualifying routes was made fairer in the early 90s, you still had genuine title contenders (e.g. Nielsen in 92) missing out because of one poor meeting, an injury at the wrong time etc. My opinion is that this de-valued rather than enhanced the final. This is where I believe the permanent wildcard helps under the current setup, and I believe the system of 3 qualifying routes (GP performance, GP qualifying and wildcards) is the system best designed to ensure the GP contains the worlds best riders. I won’t claim that the GP is perfect, but I don’t think any system is. Yes, the drama and excitement of the one-off World Final is something missed, but in return you get a system which truly finds the best rider in the world, the standard of racing is generally higher (look back at some of the old World Final’s such as Norden 83 or Gothenburg 84 and see how processional the racing was) and due to the point system every rider has something to race for in almost every race of every meeting.

still very surprised that this has made it to NZ, but very very happy about it - haven't been to a live meeting since 1987 (Belle Vue v Swindon, League cup, comfortable win for the Aces) so really looking forward to the GP. shame that there's no kiwi good enough to compete though (would love to see Larry Ross out there), but great to have the opporuntity to see the world's best competing.

Jonsson Gollob Holder Lindback

Gollob Harris Hancock Pedersen

Crump holder Harris Lindgren Aces and Pirates

Gollob Crump Hancock Wild Card

#1 Tomasz Gollob 9 #3 Jason Crump 6 #10 Nicki Pedersen 9 #12 Emil Sayfutdinov 9

#3 Jason Crump 10 #7 Kenneth Bjerre 8 #11 Fredrik Lindgren 8 #12 Emil Sayfutdinov 11