f-s-p

I talked with Matti Pöysä yesterday, he was the referee in the Russian ice racing final. He said said it was the toughest meeting he'd ever seen. With a couple of weaker riders still there was racing like never before. Referring to a statistics book from last year he said there was 77 riders listed for 2007 and on top of that there was 52 junior riders in Russia. All in all they had around 35 meetings combined last season. Thats number of total meetings, not something one rider could ride in. This means that for this seasons qualifiers, not everyone got to ride. After the meeting riders that had qualified for next weekends qualifiers packed their cars and started heading towards Europe... The one's qualified for Sweden had to be there by thursday... Poland achieves a similar qualifying system to this in speedway. The rest of us are so far off... I could be lying if I said Finland has 70+ track racing license holders all together. Thats 80cc, ice, longtrack and speedway combined.

It has rained practically all weekend. Some of it snow though but currently we are back above 0 Celsius again without snow here in Tampere. The weather forecast tells that it will remain above 0 for the rest of the week. It's looking really bad... The Finnish Individual ice racing final has been cancelled from next saturday. No new date yet. There goes the phone bill through the roof...

Just heard that the Kiel meeting will be ridden on concrete... auts GO TERO!

The cheap bugger that I am I'm waiting for next weekend for the Finnish final where I'll see people worth 6 pages.... I heard that the fall he took... He gated in to the lead, hit something in the track, bike jumped and that was it. It was his easiest heat on saturday.

Joni Kontoniemi scored 4 points in his second ice racing meeting, ever, in Saalfelden.

Here we go again... Posting news that a team hasn't updated it's website... Trying to boost the figure's a bit, arent you!

I think the isracing.net guestbook will the the fastest way to find out... It's been raining all day as well here in Tampere...

After a week of (almost) winter weather it's now all turned to crap again in Tampere. It rained all last night and most of the 15 cm of snow is gone and temperatures will be above 0 celsius for the next few days. Our test match against Sweden is exactly four weeks away. Nordic final is supposed to be ridden in Forssa, and thats about 80 km south from Tampere. It could look better!

You had me almost choking on my bun! Where do you get people to your club and work for your club pro bono? Children and their parents. A bit harsh, yes, but true. Taking Denmark as the opposite now... Last time I checked Denmark had 300 50cc and 80cc riders combined in the average listings. This may be a bit false so we'll take 1/3 of them away and end up with 200 juniors and their parents and families working for the clubs and getting decent to excellent training facilities in return for their kids. Last year Finland had ten 80cc riders. Of which almost half were from Lahti. They work their årses of to pay for the team and succeed in getting some facilities in return. Could/would they do it weekly or twice a month? They've said no...

The Finnish federation SML has published a list of riders selected in to a training group targeted towards future talents: 80cc: Jarkko Palmi, Mika Loppi, Timo Lahti. Grass- and Longtrack: Rene Lehtinen. Speedway: Markku Autio, Teemu Lahti, Jari Mäkinen, Joni Keskinen, Kalle Katajisto. Ice racing: Tommy Flyktman. All of the above are between 14-23 years of age. Swede Mikael Teurnberg has been appointed as the coach of this group. He will still continue in his role as Andreas Jonsson's co-ordinator. The press release doesn't clearly indicate Teurnberg's role during the summer, but one would think that he would organize riding sessions and other similar activities. Atleast early on in the spring.

Very interesting indeed. This now means that my "f-s-p" and "speedwaysanomat" badges on Juha's 2008 kevlars get some Polish exposure as well! Getting riders to any of the Polish leagues was one of the main goals of Yrjö Laukkanen, our former chairman of track racing. So he's now got one, alltough after his reign ended. I personally think that this is only good for Juha, not for Finnish speedway. If Juha gets to ride in all the meetings, that practically means he wont be seen in Finland, since we will ride mainly during the weekend. Will he get to ride or not, thats another question and only time will tell. We dont have many riders as it is...

An un-official meeting between the interested clubs was held yesterday at Tampere to discuss next years league. Keittiöpiste was the only team absent. Basis of the discussions were the new rules proposed for next year. There was still one club insisting on the Danish format alltough it was seen last December that the majority of the Finnish clubs are not interested to take part in a such a demanding format (more than double the number of home matches). There's no denying that more home matches mean more income through ticket & sausage sales but there are clubs that are unable/-willing to organize five home meetings. No Excel calculations will overrule that, no matter how extensive they are with coloured pictures and all. It now seems that there will be a league after all which is great. March 1st is the preliminary date for the official meeting to decide next seasons rules. The matter of the new #1 for track racing was also discussed and an agreement was reached. Clubs are proposing him to the federation before the deadline of January 15th along with assistants to share the workload. News broke out a couple of months ago that a Swedish coach had been hired for the Finnish juniors and the U21 riders but that hasn't been confirmed anywhere or by our federation. Personally I have been against the idea of the Danish format because I cant see it working in Finland. My views have strongly been influenced by discussions with club officials and their opinions in the last two years. + We only have around 25-30 riders with some of them injured, sick, unavailable or riding abroad at times. For example our individual final had three rider heats last season because there werent enough riders interested to participate. With the 16 riders in the final gaps were as big as half a lap between the riders as they finished. I cant see how that would change even in a few years simply by changing a league meeting format. One particularly good idea was brought up in the discussions, and that was to introduce practise before the meetings of 5-10 minutes per team. That sounds good, but on the other hand track preparation has been a problem in the past in Finland and the crushed granite tracks might not like the fact that before the meeting they have to survive through a meeting and a half. This can of course be managed if wanted.

That sounds better than Finland and we have about ten tracks.

It's just been announced that the Finnish ice racing championship final of 2008 will be ridden on saturday the 19th of January at Seinäjoki. Possible qualifier will be held earlier on the day. First heat of the final will start at 13.30. I'm told that also Tommy Flyktman and Antti Aakko are riding.

Who owns the copyright to GPS coordinates? I have all the Finnish track coordinates but I havent had the time to sort out if it's ok to publish them or not...

Dackarna having a top home average of 5341 and Masarna being the weakest with 2345 (not counting the homeless Kaparna with 1329) I'd say Swedish matches attracted a bit more in 2007... Finnish average in the Extraliiga last season was 180 (+/- 10). Pori and Kuusankoski had crowds of over 350 with Vaasa attracting only 110 combined to their two home matches at Seinäjoki.

A statement dated December 17th had arrived in my email on the 28th of the same month giving information about the reasons behind Yrjö Laukkanen's decision to step down. Laukkanen decided to step down because he felt he didn't have the support from the clubs to back his plans for the deveploment of Finnish speedway. He also tells that he will finalize everything that is currently "ongoing" before travelling to Thailand to play golf. Rules for the Extraliiga season 2008 have also been released for the clubs to see. Basically they are what was expected to be released three months ago. One major modification was made and that is the number of foreigners for a match. Thats now dropped to one. Not really sure will this go through or not... Finnish ice racing final 2008 scheduled for the end of March has been changed to another date. The club at Seinäjoki weren't promised there would be enough ice so late in to the spring so they may keep their meeting earlier at another venue. It was supposed to be ridden on artificial ice. The home track of the speed skater Pekka Koskela.

Lehtinen and Kontoniemi are to ride at the Austrian qualifier a week after that. There REALLY arent that many options. Get a grip you guys... Happy New Year!

Actual heat details will without a doubt give more insight to what has happened. These were GP-style cup points for the series. From what I read on the isracing.net guestbook Aakko won the B-final and progressed in to the A-final. Posa was disqualified in the B-final for crossing the inside line. I heard that Aakko still rides the same frame that fell in to pieces last season. He has made some modifications and updates but you can still call it the same frame.

Why pay 2,50 £ for fish and chips when you can plant the potatoes in the spring, watch them grow, fish for cod while you're at it and then harvest the potatoes when they're ready. Then take the lot to your mother and she prepares them for you. FOR FREE!!

You dirty older bugger...

Clubs have now taken the matter as their own and are talking about running the league next year with rules from -06 and -07 with minor clarifications and amendments. This is good. They have set a clear deadline in January to get things sorted by then. That would be a massive boost since for the past couple of years things havent been clear even by mid march!

Oulu has 2 cm of ice on the track and they need it to be at least 20 cm. -2 to -5 forecasted until the end of the year with occasional rain. 18 cm of creating ice in 8 days with just a couple of minus grades... Forssa doesn't have even that. Seinäjoki na-da-ting! It's not looking all that great for Tampere either or the Nordic Champs meeting at Forssa just 4 weeks later than the already cancelled meetings. Hhhmmmmm....

Finnish final at Oulu 29th December cancelled Swedish league round at Forssa 6th January cancelled International meeting at Seinäjoki 5th January cancelled

Finnish final at Oulu 29th December cancelled Swedish league round at Forssa 6th January cancelled International meeting at Seinäjoki 5th January cancelled No ice, no snow.