Grand Central

I hold no candle for Ole Olsen. Have never been able to stand the guy. I have been irritated by Phil's oft repeated mantra. That building one-off tracks is 'not an exact science'. But .... They are on the right side of the argument. Every single GP that is to be staged inside a roofed stadium demands a temporary track that is created in the matter of a few days. No getting away from that fact. If you want Cardiff ... You have to have a temporary track. But there will never be an infallible method. It will be impossible to guarantee it. There will always be a risk. You may refine it. You may have to just stick to the stadiums that are best suited. Who knows? But there can never be a guarentee. But after the events of Saturday. Everyone is now wanting that absolute certainty that just cannot be given. And now with zero good will from the riders. Isn't the 'answer' further away, than ever after what was done in Warsaw. Rather than patting themselves on the back for their 'achievement'. Where do THEY, the Warsaw 18, think we go from here? I can just imagine Pedersen picking up his fourth crown at Norden. With just a few hardy souls for company. Wondering 'what happened?'

Re tmc posting. Excellent in every respect. Just makes me miss the Speedway Mail even more. Telling it as it is.

Time and again in the riders' quotes it seems that it really is all about not being able to cope with green lights starts. That was the clincher. I'm amazed that so many of them go through a pre-race ritual of 'practice starts' all around the track on the way to the tapes. All that practice without tapes. How on earth do they do it? And then on the big night, when the tapes are taken away They are impotent. All limp and flaccid. Little boys like that are best just playing with themselves.

Just to be safe, for certain. Let's stop altogether. Shut the whole sport down as it far, far too dangerous. Then have a laugh at how easy those 18 would find a real job that paid them half as well. .

'Was he born with no testicles or did he have them surgically removed?'

Well, just devoured my Speedway Star online. My thoughts to start the ball rolling are No cover up of the humiliating disaster that was Saturday night. Peter Oakes gives a pretty comprehensive two-page resume of the unfolding nightmare. Some criticism of BSI and their response, and non existent crisis management. They will have 'get their act together' in the main. But it generally looks like Ole will be carrying the can, pretty much on his own. Philip Rising, and others, cover the same ground with undoubted exasperation. The dopey set of officials are one by one exonerated by the Star. And the riders are getting off scot-free. Being actually praised for their behaviour. On more than one occasion in fact. Utterly dreadful This quote from Pedersen. "But on the night, there were 18 riders who didn't want to ride and that's a very good thing for speedway" That must be one of the must disgusting quotes of any Speedway rider in the history of the sport.

Although it is the tapes issue that really precipitated the rider revolt on Saturday. There is no doubt that the inconsistency of track preparation is an issue that will matter for all future indoor GPs And one that was made full use of to get the postponement activated by the dim-witted Jury. As regards the time taken to prepare the track. I presume this is the reason why the PZM statement on Sunday made it plain that SpeedSport had access to the Stadium on April 12 to begin track building. But that they did not commence doing so until April 14. No doubt one of the little entrails that the lawyers will chew over.

Just taking a different tack for a moment. It took THIRTY FOUR years for Speedway to get a crowd in excess of 50,000. The last one being at Wembley in 1981. And yet on Saturday night the riders have effectively ensured that no other crowd of that size may ever attend a Speedway meeting again. Ever. Quite amazing to think of that, isn't it? And hardly surprising that they have taken a vow of silence on the matter, either.

Absolutely. But that is what the brightest brains at the heart of SGP Speedway feel is right and appropriate at this time. And no one can detect the aroma of ordure?

My understanding is that Speedway Star is published by Pinegen Ltd. The Managing Editor of Speedway Star is Phil Rising and Paul Burbidge is a reporter for the magazine. I also believe that Pinegen Ltd are publishers of the programmes for quite few GPs for BSI. Personal, and journalistic, integrity will ensure that this apparent conflict of interest will have no effect whatsoever on the reporting of Speedway Star as regards the Polish Grand Prix. And I am unanimous in that! ..

I've checked the lamp furniture in Surbiton. No white-haired journos dangling as yet. Tomorrow!! Then it may be different.

Spot on. Whilst Bellamy's first statement was, rightly, heavily influenced by IMG lawyers. This one is is just taking the p!ss. It is the prose equivalent of sending 15 riders out on a lap 'of honour' in Warsaw, just after they have got the meeting cancelled. Arrogant and contemptuous. Spin doctors must be strung up from the nearest lamppost .

This is all about the starts. Everything else is smokescreen.

So yes, thank you for looking at things calmly. But it still arrives at pretty much the same, rather pitiful, conclusions. A whole group of officials and 'backroom' people did their job in a p!ss poor fashion. Thus producing a 'perfect storm' of inadequate practice track, barely adequate raceday track, malfunctioning tapes, malfunctioning referee and ineffectual race director. So the riders got so upset, that they spat out their dummies. And by virtue of 'rider power' were able to get the wet-weekend-trio in the Jury to call it off. And 50000 spectators plus the massive TV audience, are supposed to look at this calmy!! Antiquated phrase or not. It needs to be brought back into common usage for ALL these people. They should hang their heads in shame.

The first one to break the silence. And the lies about the track are laid bare. Those 'men' deserve no sycophants to jump to their defence. What a disgraceful bunch.

Some people just never disappoint, do they?

Oh, for gods sake. This is just ridiculous.

Surely that is what we were led to believe after Ullevi, Gelsenkirchen and Riga, Remember how close to disaster we were with Cardiff 2013. And in this latest case we are not even sure that 'the organisers' even have it within there gift to prevent this happening. If they say none of it is their fault. How can we be sure they have the power to prevent recurrence?

I tend to feel that this was the most important point of the lot. The green light starts worked well, they were fair. But way way TOO fair. They were different from the 'ordinary' for ALL riders. Comfort zones were compromised. The lack of steel (or too much Steele and Lawrence) in the jury. That's not fair. Not fair on us.

Perhaps that was it though. Saint Greg being passed by the lowly Bomber. There MUST be a reason. It has to be the track. Could not possibly be any other reason.

Err, no, not really. Does every comment now need to come with a health warning. Just to avoid A&E being full of Speedway supporters taking posts as being too literal. I would describe Saturday night in Warsaw as an almighty 'Cock Up'. I beg you NOT to take that literally.

I quite agree. I wonder what Philip's views on this incongruity are, from his vantage point.

If all parts of the Speedway world were staffed with persons of exemplary standard then situations like Saturday would not happen. Or when they did the people involved would cope. But we already know that that is not the case, truly don't we? My god, my life following this sport has told me one thing above all others. Do not expect too much of the people involved. Few of them are ever up to it. One of the most glaring things that was clear on Saturday night was the total lack of crisis management. Whatever the right and wrongs of each and every incident or area of dispute. No one was in charge. There was no one, no single person in the whole Stadium who could stop the spiral down the toilet, once it had started Not one. Pygmies. The lot of 'em. .

Obviously Paul Bellamy has just published exactly what he was dictated by IMG's lawyers. It is meant to be a statement that deals with the need for him to say something, whilst actually not saying anything at all. Clearly legal action is likely to follow, in more than one direction I imagine. So that is all he can do at this stage. The two points I would raise are: 1) Does this not highlight the folly of the 'set up' we have with shared, mixed and, indeed interwoven, responsibilities. The mix of PZM, BSI, FIM and SpeedSport could now be a lawyers wet dream. 2) How are subsequent GPs to be run later in the year if the riders have the final say over the track; and yet only Ole is allowed to build it? And even one that is relatively OK gets cancelled just because no one has big enough balls to handle prima donnas. .

There are going to be a lot of recriminations about the unmitigated disaster of last night. Perhaps people will be held to account. More likely they won't. But the biggest challenge right now is to try to work out what happens next. To get through the rest of the year. This year the SGP is due to have more 'Ole tracks' than ever. We are told that it is not an 'exact science'. But the mad professor is just not sufficiently proficient to get it right often enough. What the hell can they do?