E I Addio

Very impressed with Boxall during his all-too-short spell at Lakeside before he was injured. Quite a gutsy rider from what I saw, and although he has an unfortunate reputation for reliability ( or lack of it ) he seems to have matured quite a lot a deserves this chance.

You can't count anything Coventry fans say.

Yep, the rules say you can't knock someone off. Penhall was good at not knocking people off. He didn't knock Kenny Carter off either Hang on. I did say he was one of the very, very best. Just going by Banger Jansens interview in Classic Speedway a toss of the coin for gate positions might , MIGHT, have made the difference in his final title win. Wish I had seen Ronnie Moore and Briggo at their absolute best. By the time I saw them they were both over the hill. Still absolute world class, still both able to win the British Championship in what was at the time a class field, but both on the way down and past their best. Would have loved to have seen them in their prime. o Others I would have liked to have seen : Aub Lawson, Jack Parker, Tommy Price, Split Waterman

Just to be clear, there is no post anywhere on this thread or that says Kyle has no ambition. In a discussion about Jason Garritty it was stated that Garritty has ambition and the blue tints brigade (led by you ) were so offended that credit should be given to a Coventry rider they all started harummphing about Newman who was not the subject of that particular discussion.

Rick Frost seems to have gone very quiet on his demands for an independent body to run the sport since he got hooked up,with Ford. Strange that, especially since him and Trump practically brought the sport to its knees with his demands for one five years ago.

Ok, I sort of get it but I still think there will be some anomalies, but maths is not my strong point. We'll see what the final list says.

By all means correct me if I am missing something or being obtuse, but surely the amount of time a rider spends as heat-leader depends on the strength of the rest of the team . For example if Dave Watt had ridden for a Leicester or Wolves the chances are he would have spent a lot longer as heatleader than he did at Poole. It surely also depends on injuries. Kim Nilsson had only just been elevated to heatleader when he was injured and therefore missed a number of meetings in a heatleader role. That can make all the difference to the assessment couldn't it ?

No, we believe there are 18 riders on it because that's what CVS said ( I think it was CVS ) and while I accept that he is one of the more reliable promoters in his announcements, despite being the target of all kinds of abuse by some on here, this is still Speedwáy so I personally prefer to wait till we see the list in black and white. Unfortunately the discussion on here has been generating more heat than light so far, partly by the pronouncements of some who think they are "in the know" when they clearly are not, and partly because of the hyperbole of some who clearly cannot read a simple press release. The heatleader list is obviously not a definitive list of who is a heatleader and who is a second string. It is merely an attempt to ensure that there is a reasonable spread of riders and reasonable competitiveness between teams. Whether it is successful in those objectives remains to be seen, but there are bound to be a few anomalies or a few that some fans think are wrong, but the acid test is the general competitiveness of the final line ups when all are finally announced. EDIT: the comparison between Davey and Danny is a case in point. Personally I would have Davey over Danny any day , but others will have a different view, so we are unlikely to get a list that everyone thinks is great, but we can only judge it when we see it.

OK Sid, I am happy to be corrected on Maugers 79 Title win. I cannot remember the details so maybe I am getting mixed up with another occasion. I totally agree with you about Briggo though. The other way of looking at it is that Fundin was sort of lucky to take 5 World titles. There was an interesting article in Classic Speedwáy when Bengt Jansen was talking about his run-off with Fundin. Apparently both riders knew that whoever won the toss for gate positions would win the title because one gate was working much better than the others. Ove won the toss and picked the best gate. Jansen said he even asked Fundin to swap gates on the basis Fundin already won 4 titles and Bengt hadn't won any but Ove wouldn't swap. Still I cant fault Fundin on his record. By all accounts, one of the very , very best the sport has ever seen.

Most people's view ? A few on here maybe that want to jump,the gun but until we see the list, know how long it is, and what the criteria was ( assuming it wasn't just guesswork) I don't think anyone can say whether he should or shouldn't be on it. I am mystified as to how Danny King coukd be on there and not Davey, ( if it's true that Danny is on there) but it's difficult to say without seeing who else is on it.

That would be very difficult with you up it

I think it's fair to say all the Poles got away with some terrible rolling starts in most of their races in the meeting, mostly because the start Marshall was useless, and so many other starts were ragged, not fit for a novice meeting, let alone a World Final. With 140,000 Poles getting restless in the crowd there was a lot of pressure on the organisers for a home rider to win, hence Dave Lannings comment that they were making the rules up as they went along to try to get a Pole to win. The run off is on you tube for all to see. If you watch closely you can see the Pole sits about three feet back from tp the tapes, starts rolling and the ref. let's the tapes go, so the Pole is away. The race is not even stopped when Mauger is lying unconscious on the track with the doctor attending him. Then we see the sheer arrogance of the Pole. As he comes down the straight he can see Mauger lying on the track with the track doctor leaning over him and he deliberately let his bike run wide missing the doctor and Mauger literally by inches, showering them both with shale. As to your comment about Mauger, Sid , I agree with you that he was a bit lucky in 79, and I think in his previous win, but I can't really fault his win in 72 although I think things might have been different if Briggo hadn't been mown down by Bernt Persson.

Not what Dave Lanning said.

Exactly so. You might as well post that in Chinese for all the sense it will make to Starman

What I said was that he was mostly rubbish away from his home turf . He won the World Title and The World Pairs title in his home country. The previous occasion that he qualified for the World Final it was held in Sweden and he scored a big fat zero, same as he failed to score when he came to Wembly shortly after being awarded the World Title. I don't think he won anything worth winning outside of Poland. My point was can a rider be regarded as a genuine world champion when he generally performs so badly away from his home territory. It is unprecedented that a World champion should have such a poor record away from home. When you look at the record of the other top stars of the era , Briggs, Mauger, Collins, Michanek etc they almost always bagged big points wherever they rode, Szczakiel had a poor record outside of Poland. Even Dave Lanning was scathing about him when he came to Wembly and scored 0.

Can someone be regarded as a true world champion when he can only win on his home turf? To give Penhall his due he was a pretty decent rider and a formidable opponent wherever he went. Szczakiel on the other hand was rubbish most of the time away from Poland. A month after was awarded ( I won't say "won ") the world title became rode at Wembly in an international against GB and was totally humiliated, being bottom scorer and I think scored either 0 or 1 and that was pretty much the level of most of most of his matches away from Poland.

He also had the worst crash that I can remember a rider walking away from . He clipped the safety fence and went over the handlebars head first into the ground, then bounced up as his crash helmet came off (at the time I thought his head had come off) , went up into the air, somersaulted twice ,hit the ground and bounced again, back into the air and sprawled out onto the ground. In probably less than 5 minutes he was back on his feet walking to the pits, and as far as I remember he took his remaining rides. Tough cookie was Bryan.Sadly another piece of Speedwáy history gone.

.....but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

We already have one. No reason why a club shouldn't release a No1(or any other rider) replace him with someone else as long as the averages fit. Not unlike what Poole did with Miedzinski / KK a couple of years ago. The problems arise with averages, I suppose, even if they job share. Let's say for example that Liindgren who underperformed last year was due to be replaced by high scoring No 1 it makes a bit of a mockery of team building averages. It will probably be the usual thing, someone suggests it at the AGM and presents it as a half baked plan, the rest say "Ooooh that sounds like a good idea" without thinking it through and if comes in under some cobbled together rule that creates a bigger mess

I have thought that all along, and I am surprised people can't see it. It stands to reason that a riders fixed overheads ie setting up a British base with bikes engines mechanic etc will be remain pretty constant irrespective of whether he does 20 meetings or 40 so the less meetings he does the less net profit he makes, which in turn makes it a less attractive destination. Whatever area of life you look at there are always plenty of people that say they will do something then find some excuse not to. Of course some will come for a bit of practice before the continental season starts or for some extra money if their Polish/ Swedish teams get knocked out of the play offs in those countries but what commitment will there be ? You only have to look at the way Nicki P couldn't be bothered when he was brought over to Peterborough a few years ago, just here for some easy money. I can't believe people see this as some kind of panacea to put the EL back on its feet. I can't see KL fans being very happy for example if they got a high scoring No 1 like Neils for half a season then he was replaced with someone averaging a point less.

That was an agreement between Jon Cook and Len Silver. Ed was a Coventry asset when Lakeside signed him which would have given Lakeside priority but then became a Rye House asset which technically gave Rye House priority. Reading between the lines it seems Ed was not happy about that because fixture clashes would be costing him money. According to Jon Cooks programme notes it was agreed between promotions that Lakeside would have priority for their home matches and Rye House would have priority when Lakeside were riding away. I think there was also some kind of arrangement whereby he formally became a Rye asset after some sort of cut off date . This is always a problem when a rider signs for an EL club and another PL club buys him before the season starts. A similar situation arose with Richard Lawson. When there are fixture clashes not only to fans miss their rider but the rider himself looses money because he misses a meeting for one or other club. From what I have heard I think the fixtures are being arranged differently next year to keep fixture clashes to a minimum but I don't know the details. Whether it works out in practice remains to be seen.

The point you have overlooked is that PK doesn't come cheap. That was apparently the whole issue with Lakeside, he still wanted a number 1's money for a second strings points in his last season as a Hammer. He does have a great pedigree, and is entitled to earn whatever he can at this stage of his career but one of the issues might very well be that CVA might not be prepared to pay the sort of money he wants for a second string role, and at this stage of his career he might not want to come over for what Wolves can afford. It's not as if he needs the experience.

Aren't the two inextricably linked ?

They have to lodge a £10,000 bond which they can loose if they pull out so that's a big incentive to stay in.

We don't know if Barker is on the EDR list, but whether he is or not none of the EL teams have picked him so far and thst should tell you something. He is coming back from serious injury and until the season starts we won't know how well he is riding. It's all very well saying "someone like" Barker but realistically who is there anywhere near Barker who would realistically be available for Coventry ? Bottom line is that Garrity made it clear early on that he wanted to be out of the EDR and judged on his own merits. He is his own man and we can't knock him for that. The problem with looking too closely at averages is that if you are not careful you can raise it to almost an art form. Garrity is not my favourite rider by any means but he certainly has ambition and self belief , which are fundamental qualities for a Speedwáy rider . has done the right thing for himself and although it's a bit of a gamble if it works out for him in the long term I think it will be to the benefit of his club. The usual Poole response to try to turn the discussion round. Nobody has described Newman as ""having no spirit" so why do you put those words in quotes as if they did? Nobody had said Newman has no ambition. The thread is about Garrity and Coventry. The lad clearly has ambition and riding in Poland or not has nothing to do with it. Lewis Bridger got a regular team place in Poland, Craig Cook didn't, at least not on a regular basis. Who has been the most successful? Garrity has shown the determination to break away from the EDR and stand as a second string on his own merits . Newman hasn't. Those are the facts.