f-s-p

Kauhajoki speedway last saturday. I'm told the weather was not that good so only 30 spectators. Juha Hautamäki made a new track record in heat 6. I guess it tells its own story about the meeting that the winning times in heat 6 and 7 are 13 seconds a part. V Kauhajoki Speedway, Kauhajoki 29.5.2010 Juha Hautamäki SeMK 33333 15 Appe Mustonen VRT 33323 14 Aarni Heikkilä FMS 23332 13 Joni Keskinen KauhjMK 12332 11 Mika Loppi SeMK 3d223 10 Jiri Nieminen KauhjMK 32131 10 Olli Heikkilä KauhjMK 03123 9 Jouni Viljanen PMK 22012 7 J-E Korkeamäki KauhjMK 2221d 7 Reima Heikkilä FMS R1122 6 Jukka Nieminen SsMK 1d2T1 4 Jere Lehtonen PMK 2FNNN 2 Markku Larronmaa P-KMK 01NNN 1 Joni Kitala SsMK RRNNN 0 Erä erältä: 1. Loppi, Korkeamäki, Nieminen, Larronmaa 62,06 2. Hautamäki, Viljanen, R.Heikkilä R, Kitala R 60,16 3. Mustonen, Heikkilä, Keskinen, O.Heikkilä 63,34 4. J.Nieminen, Lehtonen 70,54 5. Mustonen, J.Nieminen, R.Heikkilä, Loppi d 63,13 6. Hautamäki, Keskinen, Lehtonen F, Nieminen d 59,54 7. O.Heikkilä, Viljanen, Larronmaa 72,80 8. Heikkilä, Korkeamäki, Kitala R 64,56 9. Hautamäki, Loppi, O.Heikkilä 60,39 10. Heikkilä, Nieminen, R.Heikkilä 67,63 11. Mustonen 62,81 12. Keskinen, Korkeamäki, J.Nieminen, Viljanen 63,56 13. Heikkilä, Loppi, Viljanen 71,34 14. J.Nieminen, O.Heikkilä, Nieminen T 67,78 15. Keskinen, R.Heikkilä 62,89 16. Hautamäki, Mustonen, Korkeamäki 62,93 17. Loppi, Keskinen 66,33 18. Mustonen, Viljanen, Nieminen 62,68 19. Hautamäki, Heikkilä, J.Nieminen 75,40 20. O.Heikkilä, R.Heikkilä, Korkeamäki d 63,25 Finaali: Hautamäki, Mustonen, Keskinen, Heikkilä # Tuomari: Mika Laukkanen, katsojia 30, # = no time KC at Seinäjoki was ridden on sunday but I dont have the results yet. During the weekend I heard Jere Lehtonen broke some ribs and punctured a lung and Jukka Nieminen broke his collarbone. Small incidents here and there...

Poland was exceptional. Australia had some bad luck with falls and engine failures and Czecho was just better than Finland. Finnish guys were rubbish from the gate and a track as narrow as this there was no real chance of overtaking. We did not humiliate ourselves on track, alltough the score shows excactly that. Autio broke his collarbone last weekend. I guess the management thought this was the best way for the team to do things. My face is as red as a baboons arse... The weather was great!

Also the hockey WC was on for the past two weeks. People outside the UK yet still in EU are interested in ice hockey a little atleast. Swedes and Finns anyway...

Damn You should have asked the kids.

Kaupunki Cup at Pori today cancelled because of rain. Restaging date confirmed later.

Format of Finnish league

We'll be givin Poland a couple of points headstart, since Autio is out with a suspected broken collarbone. That was the unofficial info from the track which is now confirmed by Autio's website late saturday evening.

Extraliiga opener at Pori. A lot of falls caused by over enthusiasm. Markku Autio has a suspected broken collarbone after a somewhat idiotic move against Juha Hautamäki on the second bend of the season in heat one. The video link given before is the perfect explanation to what happened, just change the other rider involved (Juha Hautamäki was hit but did not fall) and the date in your head. Good meeting overall, looking forward to the rest of the season. Kotkat 33 Juha Hautamäki 23333 14+1 Rene Lehtinen 31210 7+1 Pasi Pulliainen 206^12 11 Jarkko Palmi d10 1 Haukat 32 Timo Lahti 32332 13+1 Tomi Reima 13121 8+1 Teemu Lahti 3312M 9+2 Joni Kitala 11R 2 Paholaiset 25 Jari Mäkinen 23d4^3 12 Aarni Heikkilä 02111 5+1 Marko Suojanen 220R3 7 Jere Lehtonen 0T1 1 Jokerit 22 Markku Autio d 0 Niko Siltaniemi 1122d 6 Joni Keskinen 34^332 15 Jiri Nieminen 1d 1 Erä erältä: 1. Lehtinen, Hautamäki, Siltaniemi, Autio d 65,25 2. T.Lahti, Mäkinen, Reima, Heikkilä 63,24 3. Lahti, Pulliainen, Kitala, Palmi d 65,06 4. Keskinen, Suojanen, Nieminen, Lehtonen 65,06 5. Mäkinen, Heikkilä, Siltaniemi, Nieminen d 64,85 6. Reima, T.Lahti, Lehtinen, Pulliainen 65,56 7. Hautamäki, Lehtinen, Heikkilä, Mäkinen d 64,38 8. Lahti, Suojanen, Kitala, Lehtonen T 65,29 9. T.Lahti, Siltaniemi, Reima 64,24 10. Pullianen^, Keskinen^, Palmi 66,95 11. Hautamäki, Mäkinen^, Lehtinen, Suojanen 64,64 12. Keskinen, Reima, Lahti 66,13 13. T.Lahti, Lahti, Heikkilä, Suojanen R 64,88 14. Hautamäki, Siltaniemi, Pulliainen 65,46 15. Keskinen, Kitala R, Lahti M 66,84 16. Suojanen, Pulliainen, Lehtonen, Palmi 66,66 17. Hautamäki, T.Lahti, Reima, Lehtinen 64,94 18. Mäkinen, Keskinen, Heikkilä, Siltaniemi d 65,74 Katsojia 185, tuomari Mikko Mäki-Hakola Tuomari =referee. This year I'll try to keep track of them too.

It's a tough call how to take it... If someone like Johnny Poshbloke (former rights holder of SGP) is ready to pay for two GP's in a row to sponsor (probably knowing better than anyone else what the potential is for doing so), the potential cant be that bad? Or it was part of the package when he cashed out...

Tough onbe for Kalle but with a bit of luck he'll pull it through!

Danish tanglement = someone's near and you bail off, especially if you're in Denmark!

So he did mess up twice! Just not from the start...

1. I'd go with Giruckis, first name seems fine 2. Maksim Bogdanov 3. Jevgeni or Evgeni, pick one to go with Karavackis 4. Leonid Paura 5. Surprisingly Kjastas looks like this allover... I had a crisis about these names too at one time. Next day there was an article in the newspaper saying that 70 % of Russian dont know themselves the correct spelling of their name. So why stress about it! I've picked one for each and going with that...

Slovenia

May 29th @ Plzen, CZ Finland will meet Australia, Poland and the locals. Dont look too bad, we'll do fine! Lineup here!

I had mixed my texts yesterday, dont know what I was thinking. Timo Lahti had been taken wide in his first ride and he dropped from the lead to last and thats why he missed the qualification. Really sorry about this. So the disappointment is still there, but only a little as the fact's have now been sorted. He'll come back next year. Regarding British U21's, it's not many years ago when Jon Cook denied Edward Kennett's participation (feel free to correct me) in his quali stating "he doesn't need those meetings since we have the Elite league". Well what has Kennett done outside UK? I think Bridger know's he cant win the U21's and thinks why bother...

Longtrack meeting on sunday 16th of May at Heinola Rene Lehtinen SeMK 2222 8 Joel Nyström SE 2212 7 Pasi Pulliainen VRT 1122 6 Aki-Pekka Mustonen SeMK 1121 5 Tommi Ahlgren FMS 0211 4 Simo Pulli KarMK 2001 3 Raimo Juntunen HeMK 0010 1 Sven Mannot DE 1RNN 1 Klaus Peter Gerdemann DE RNNN 0 Erä erältä: 1. Lehtinen, Mustonen, Gerdemann 2. Nyström, Pulliainen, Ahlgren 3. Pulli, Mannot, Juntunen 4. Lehtinen, Pulliainen, Pulli 5. Nyström, Mustonen, Juntunen 6. Ahlgren, Mannot 7. Lehtinen, Nyström 8. Mustonen, Ahlgren, Pulli 9. Pulliainen, Juntunen 10. Lehtinen, Ahlgren, Juntunen 11. Nyström, Pulli 12. Pulliainen, Mustonen Semifinaali: Mustonen, Ahlgren, Juntunen, Pulli Finaali: Mustonen, Lehtinen, Pulliainen, Nyström, Juntunen, Ahlgren Katsojia 500 This meeting was to top off the training camp at the track during the weekend.

Thank you MatejFerjan.com! org/history didn't have the details I wanted... With the info I needed to verify I'm happy to say we are on the right trails again!!! In the U21 qualifiers Finland returned to the ranks of semifinal stage nations after an absence of 9 years. A full decade has passed since Finland did this well in the qualifiers when Joonas Kylmäkorpi and Kauko Nieminen both made it to the semifinal stage and Kylmäkorpi eventually finished 12th in the final at Gorzow 2000. The effort by the young Finns is the fruit of the hard work put in them by the federation head coach Jyri Palomäki and the federation U21 coach Mikael Teurnberg. A federation backed training scheme has been working now for a third year. Last year Kalle Katajisto became the 1st ever Finn to qualify for the U19 European final. Not sure if it's public knowledge, but it was REALLY close that Katajisto did not ride at all in Gdansk. His meeting permit or what ever had not reached the organizers and the jury president had informed the Finnish camp that without the permit he would not ride. The permit was orgainzed with a few phonecalls and some off office hours federation efforts and it was okay for Katajisto to ride. Funny thing is, that with that same email another form was sent to the orgainizers and that paper had arrived OK...

Any help would be greatly appreciated, where I can find online results from U21 qualifiers between 1998 and 2002. world.speedway.org seems to have gone, wikipedia is no help and speedway.org ends 2003. Pretty please... speedwayresultat.com by Anders gives me all I need from 2001 forward... Of the finns in this years qualifiers. Jari Mäkinen was a huge and welcomed surprise while Niko Siltaniemi was in deep sh1te with his borrowed new King silencers. He could not make his bike work with them. Katajisto did as expected and qualified. Timo Lahti info corrected on the next page, my mistake.

Yyteri speedway today, pretty good one! Joni Keskinen KauhjMK 32333 14 Markku Autio KuMaMo 33322 13 Teemu Lahti KMMK 21333 12 Rene Lehtinen SeMK 33222 12 Aarni Heikkilä FMS 11333 11 Petri Koskela PMK 22223 11 Jani Eerikäinen KarhMK 03132 9 Jouni Viljanen PMK 22201 7 Jere Lehtonen PMK 11212 7 Jiri Nieminen KauhjMK 12111 6 Marko Suojanen PMK 23NNN 5 Jukka Nieminen SsMK 01120 4 Pasi Pulliainen VRT 3dNNN 3 Reima Heikkilä FMS 00111 3 Erä erältä: 1. Keskinen, Lahti, Heikkilä, Eerikäinen 64,83 2. Lehtinen, Koskela, Lehtonen, Nieminen 64,81 3. Pulliainen, Viljanen, J.Nieminen, R.Heikkilä 65,36 4. Autio, Suojanen 64,48 5. Suojanen, Keskinen, Nieminen, Pulliainen d 65,81 6. Autio, Koskela, Lahti, R.Heikkilä 64,56 7. Eerikäinen, J.Nieminen, Lehtonen 67,11 8. Lehtonen, Viljanen, Heikkilä 65,55 9. Keskinen, Koskela, J.Nieminen 65,22 10. Lahti, Viljanen, Nieminen 65,78 11. Autio, Lehtinen, Eerikäinen 64,87 12. Heikkilä, Lehtonen, R.Heikkilä 66,13 13. Keskinen, Autio, Lehtonen, Viljanen 65,88 14. Lahti, Lehtinen, J.Nieminen 66,14 15. Eerikäinen, Nieminen, R.Heikkilä 67,52 16. Heikkilä, Koskela 66,35 17. Keskinen, Lehtinen, R.Heikkilä 66,24 18. Lahti, Lehtonen 66,49 19. Koskela, Eerikäinen, Viljanen 67,52 20. Heikkilä, Autio, J.Nieminen, Nieminen 66,48 Finaali: Autio, Keskinen, Lahti, Lehtinen, Heikkilä 65,49 Katsojia 805 Markku Autio won the final before Joni Keskinen and Teemu Lahti. Keskinen was very impressive during the qualifiers and lead after 20 heats. There were a few excellent heats of racing and they all involded Rene Lehtinen. He had a good battle with Autio, Keskinen and Teemu Lahti but lost them all. Lahti had a slow start but started to get on the pace later on. After a good start to the final it looked like he was satisfied with his position after almost throwing it away by try too far from the outside. Pasi Pulliainen (-94 Finnish U21 champion) took an easy win from his first race after a 13 year absence from speedway racing but fell on the first lap of his second and wrecked his bike to a degree that he withdrew himself. His 2nd bike was on it's way to Poland to help Kalle Katajisto's ambitions in the U21 qualis. Pictures from the meeting have been sent to speedwaysuomi.com and hopefully they'll be online during the weekend.

So who's shooting who on the foot... They are federation slots for the first round, but if a federation gives them away (in time), I'm certain they are offered around.

Finnish season opener next thursday. Draw: 1. Joni Keskinen SeMK 2. Teemu Lahti KMMK 3. Jani Eerikäinen KarhMK 4. Aarni Heikkilä FMS 5. Jukka Nieminen SsMK 6. Petri Koskela PMK 7. Jere Lehtonen PMK 8. Rene Lehtinen SeMK 9. Pasi Pulliainen VRT 10. Reima Heikkilä FMS 11. Jiri Nieminen KauhjMK 12. Jouni Viljanen PMK 13. Marko Suojanen PMK 14. Markku Autio KuMaMo 15. - 16. - Very interesting to see how Pasi Pulliainen will perform...

BoBc, why were British kids asked that late? Was it because there were no british riders willing to take part in this meeting (that has been known since last November-ish)? OR because someone had withdrawn and Jean-Paul from the FIM was kind enough to ask federations for new riders and the ACU/BSPA U21 supremo did the rounds and asked for new ones... So could it be that in this case the actions of British speedway could be applauded!!?

Last year in July. He was taken to a hospital with a suspected broken thigh but was walking the week after again and riding in a few weeks. The last time I spoke to him about this was almost two months after and no xrays were taken by then. But like I said, he was back on the bike only a few weeks after. He had done that same move on the season (-09)opener to another guy who gave room, but this time it did not happen...

The crash between Markku Autio and Teemu Lahti has been downloaded to the net from last years U21 Finnish final. Consider yourselves warned, the last 30 seconds is not pretty. More info on mr Autio from his website at www.autioracing.com 46MB videofile here. First info on the Finnish season opener Yyteri speedway is online. Tomi Reima, Teemu Lahti, Markku Autio + others are riding...