oldace

Correct. A meeting can be decided on meeting your main rival from the right gate. There is no way with a 16 rider 20 heat format to make it totally fair though, it would require a minimum of 40 heats, realistically a lot more. With having an SGP series though that advantage usually evens out over the course of the year Whilst I agree with you 100% the concept is used in many sports. The winner of race 1 in the BTCC carries more ballast next time out I believe. Even horse racing handicaps a horse for a previous good win

Now you are being silly. Then, as now, and as always in fact, you had a winner who had more points than anyone else under whatever format was in place at the time. Like I said you have applied the GP win crireria to someone being world champion, it never existed any more than race wins were a factor under the old system. You have got yourself into a hole and rather than admit you are totally wrong you keep on digging

Haven't you noticed yet Rob, Ian applies different criteria to suit his argument. It is OK for a rider to win a world final with 2 race wins to an opponents 4. Oh yes that is fine because he accumulates more race points over the meeting, Of course we move onto the GP and it is totally unacceptable for a rider to accumulate less wins than an opponent even if he accumulates more race points over the series. Ian has been tying himself in knots this last few weeks to the point that within a few posts he has been arguing with himself. We had the disgrace of Woffinden being seeded to the GP on the strength of nationality and within a few minutes we were hearing of how a seeded rider winning a world final is what the sport is all about

Go on then enlighten me, how is this so. The WINNER of the grand final is the WINNER of the GP, in what way is he the loser. In order to get to the grand final he will have accumulated anything from 9 to 18 points to be added to the 6 for WINNING the GP and these accumulate to give us an overall world champion. That has been my understanding but are you now telling me the WINNER is stripped of his GP win if he has scored less race points than another competitor.. Good job your'e not a boxing fan Ian, that would confuse you, imagine boxer winnning a title fight despite losing 11 rounds just by a KO in the last. Ah well thats boxing

Riders have won world finals with two race wins when a rider with 4 race wins was only third, is that fair. The idea of the GP is exactly the same as a world final, the winner is the one who scores the most points, winning rounds no more comes into it than winning races did in years gone by

Pretty accurate description although Ivan wasn't unconscious, he wasn't even hurt, other than his pride, and pocket. The whole thing was really set up for Zenon Plech but he blew it, in stepped the back up plan in Szackiel and the rest is history.

We all possibly look back through rose tinted glasses and things seem better than they actually were. The simple truth though Ian is that it is nigh on impossible to have any form of qualifying that is completely fair and gives the best 16 the possibility of making the final. It would require numerous qualyfying events then repercharges to do it. I honestly believe that, although by no means perfect, what we have now is better than anything that has gone before.

Indeed it has, but to be honest marketing is not what is needed. Anyone could get a crowd in the once, free admission attracts people. The thing is though that they must then be shown something that they want to pay to watch thereafter and speedway simply doesn't do it. The main flaw is in the way the sport is presented, it looks, sounds and is extremely dated. I know darts is not to everyones liking but it is a good example. Up to the early 90s the BDO world final was watched by a couple of thousand old folk, all sitting in almost silence, old women doing there knitting in the front row, and that was the pinnacle, no other events attracted either a crowd or TV interest. Now roll on 20 years and look what goes on at the Ally Pally or any Premier league venue. Not an old dear in sight, loud music flashing lights, 10,000 plus crowd and a good atmosphere. The actual darts though is still largely the same, just the way it is presented that has moved on

The seeding often compounded the unfairness in that despite gifting places to a nations riders it often denied a fair qualifying process Take 1972, GB were given 5 places at Wembley that year but back then the Aussies and Kiwi's were under the GB banner so we had Mauger, Briggs, Nigel and Eric Boocock, Terry Betts, John Louis, Ray Wilson, John Boulger, Jim Mcmillan, a young Collins and Jessup all vieing for those 5 places. Dam good riders simply had to not qualify and yet in the final we had the might of Anatolij Kuzmin, Alexander Pavlov, Gregorij Khlynovski, Viktor Trofimov, Viktor Kalmykov. And people (well only Ian and Derek) seem to think it was in some way fair.

It wasn't uncommon Craven, Moore, Briggo (twice) were all seeded to world finals. The Poles actually had 6 seeds in 1970. Even us brits had 4 in 1978 although we organised qualifying rounds rather than hand pick the four. There are dozens more examples

Indeed he was Ian

We have been trying to tell you this for years Ian. No one thinks the current system is 100% perfect but you have constantly gone on about the old way being fair when in truth the old way was about as unfair as it could be. Seeding to the final or later stages of qualifying was rife from the 50s through to the 80s and not always because of being world class but to draw a crowd. Possibly the worst one was Henny Kroeze in Amsterdam but the Poles regularly had substandard riders in their world finals

Do you want to research that statement a little bit? Or to save you the trouble, no he didnt, along with the other 4 Poles in the final they were seeded to draw a crowd Not quite game set and match then!!!!!

You see no contradiction? You have long argued that it was good for an underdog to win and you have in the past used 1973 as an example of unpredicability and the underdog coming out on top. Now I might be being silly but please explain the difference between Szackiels presence in the 1973 world final (what the sport is all about according to you) and Woffindens presence in the 2013 SGP.

But even worse is that in 1973 we had a winner who didn't even qualify but that was great Now one of Ians criticisms is the lack of qualifying into the GPs, although he has gone quiet on that one since it was shown to be nonsense

Indeed they did Rob, but racing in Poland was even up to the late 80s, a great leveller vetween the East and West. In 1970 in Wroclaw 2 poles on Rostrum, same in 1973 in Katowice, no rostrum 1976 (Plech was 5th) and 1 rostrum place in 1979. The 4 finals in Poland in the seventies had 5 of the 12 rostrum places occupied by Poles Out of the other 6 finals of that decade how many of the 18 rostrum places did the Poles occupy? I will give you a clue, it is less than 1

Where did those races take place though, I would hazard a guess Szcackiel's wins were all behind the iron curtain?

Twice in the 60s the Poles finished ahead of GB when the final wasn't in Poland and not once in the seventies No matter what spin you try to put on it the Poles, outside of their own country (with a few exceptions, Plech. Jancarz etc) were really not that great until the fall of communism and free movement, equally competing in Poland always lowered the standard of thw westerners so on home soil they could, and invariably did, beat the best

But apparently that is what sport is all about, having a world champion who is not very good, rather than one who is proven to be the best over an entire season.

Exactly Phil, the whole asset thing is nonsense. Many Aces fans keep banging on about assets, why?. It is totally pointless in the current system. Buying established riders is a total waste of money. On the other hand if you can get a young unattached rider on your books FOC then that is a different matter.

Within a few posts you have completely changed your view. Earlier you were adament that a substandard rider shouldn't be there on the strength of Nationality as it is unfair on genuine world class riders Now you think that is what sport should be about Make your mind up man

You must remember that back in the seventies the East European tracks were alien to anything the western riders were used to and it made the Poles seem miles better than they really were. Rather like Exeter used to be over here, very mediocre riders could appear world beaters round the county ground but not anywhere else, if there had been a world final at Exeter in the mid 80s and seeded 5 home riders it is not inconceivable that one would have won, it wouldnt make them world class though

With respect Rob you are young and going off things you have read and seen in books and such. As someone around at the time trust me Szcackiel was very lucky to win. As well as being gifted 5 places, as hosts everything possible was done to favour the Poles, albeit Plech was really the chosen one bur blew it. He was simply a journeyman who had his best match ever combined with the dice being loaded in his favour and the sport ended up with a laughing stock world champion, although in Ians mind this is how he would like it to be once again

You have to love him dont you. We now have possibly 15 of the best 16 riders in the world competing for the world championship and it is a farce because of 1 rider who isn't there on merit Then he cites 1973 as how it should be with 5 riders not there on merit and one of those who was nowhere near world class getting a lucky win.