TwoMinuteWarning

This is the track that had 15,300 near capacity crowd for a league match last Sunday. And can someome tell Scott that yes, Adrian Miedzinski rides for Torun as we keep being told, but so does Gollob!

PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT SHOW RESULTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY MAY ACTUALLY SHOW THE RACING ONE DAY SOON!!!!!!!

Is this some sort of practical joke? Are they taking the p*** out of our sport?

at Marketa Stadium, Prague CZECH REPUBLIC Ales Dryml Lukas Dryml Josef Franc Matej Kus Vaclav Milik Zdenek Simota Tomas Suchanek Roman Cejka POLAND Tomasz Gollob Jaroslaw Hampel Krzysztof Kasprzak and probably Adrian Miedzinski Maciej Janowski Przemyslaw Pawlicki Patryk Dudek

To those of us who no longer have a team to support (I'm ex-Wimbledon), the more "scattered" nature of the club news has made me read more, rather than less, of those news items. I preferred the old system of having all match reports in league order, but it's no big deal. Would like to see junior/second-half matches get the same reports and heat details as the senior matches each week. Current junior coverage is patchy. I'm also surprised that there is rarely/never any coverage of amateur meetings (Scunny, Lydd, Northside etc) I also like the team pics on the back cover, though that must be difficult with all the injuries, guests and doubling-up in teams these days. It's a steal at just over 2 quid a time. Please print a blank scorechart for people to use when watching EL on TV, like you do for the GP. Or maybe the BSPA wouldn't like this as it may reduce programme sales? And, for someone with a big interest in the history of the sport, the Star documents that history in hard copy, which is invaluable. Information on the web is fine, and is here today ... BUT possibly gone tomorrow.

Ryan Fisher to partner Greg, I think? Jan Staechmann doing pits interviews

Just hope that most of them DONATE TO TAI & CANCER RESEARCH at www.justgiving.com/taiwoffinden01008

Interesting to note that Josef Franc qualified as the wild card at the Prague GP by winning the Marketa Open Championship meeting at Prague on April 30 (see latest Speedway Star).

If there is no Sky TV money next year, I think it WILL come to cutting top riders pay. Which will result in less top riders. Which will result in smaller crowds. Which will result in ... don't wanna go there ....

The Berwick meeting is still on next Tuesday according to the Sky on-screen TV Guide

Fair point. Just to say that the Arlington bank holiday meeting was Bangers and Superstox, not Brisca F1 as shown on Premier Sports each week. To my knowledge, Spedeworth must have been running stocks at Arlington for about 50 years now!

Stock cars are an "entertainment" really, not a true sport. Ask the bank holiday 5,000 crowd who won the main events, and I'd be amazed if more than 1 in 20 knew the answer. Stock cars normally run on Wednesday nights at Arlington, when crowds I'm told are 1,500 to 2,000. Mums and dads love it, and of course the kids love all the crashes and bangs. Nothing wrong with that, I'm sure its a fun afternoon out. Speedway is a 1-minute race which has a 50% chance of being boring and processional, followed by 5 minutes of, well, nothing. Not what young families expect from an evening's sport in the 21st century, I'm afraid. By the way, stock cars on Wednesday nights could make it difficult for Eastbourne to stage Sky matches now.

Teams for the 2011 (Torun) and 2012 (Gorzow) matches were very strong - see http://www.internationalspeedway.co.uk/polvrow.htm

Now, THAT'S a race track! (Promoters please take note)

But Vladimir was born in Ukraine, yes?

Meetings, and each heat, are started when the riders and the referee are ready, it seems to me. Just part of the generally poor presentation these days. In the early days of the sport, some tracks had start times against each race in the programme, as is done with greyhound races. Can't really see that catching on these days!

Going to a speedway meeting in the 21st Century is like entering a time warp, or an episode of the "Goodnight Sweetheart" TV series. I first went to speedway in the early 1960's - very little has changed! The bikes are faster (TOO fast), there are air fences now, and coloured leathers. None of which turns the all-to-often mundane speedway meeting into a 21st century entertainment, or improves the standard of racing. Speedway needs a massive injection of capital - but I can't see where it's coming from. The promoters do their best - but with very limited money available. Speedway basically hasn't changed since the 1960's. The paying public's expectations have.

By NOT giving double points for the final, you are increasing the likelihood of the winner of the final not being the top point scorer in the meeting. Dosen't bother me too much, but several people have complained about this in the past.

This will mean that we get even more meetings where the winner of the Final is not the top point scorer. And still no points reward for a rider reaching the semis and then finishing 4th. I'd like to see scoring 4-3-2-1 in semis and 6-4-2-1 in Final (non-finishers to score 0)

Looks like a 3-round U-21 championship this year. That's more than enough. Common sense rules ... well done Armando!

10 days to the first GP ... if they aren't careful, it'll be history before the camera crews get there!

Result of inquest : An international speedway rider would have known "perfectly well" the risks he faced competing in the sport before he was killed in a horrific crash following a race in Poland, a coroner said. Lee Richardson, 33, suffered multiple injuries after careering into a wooden safety fence while competing for PGE Marma Rzeszow against Betard Sparta Wroclaw on May 13 last year. An inquest in Hastings, East Sussex, heard that the Great Britain star's front wheel touched the rear wheel of another rider as he prepared to overtake him on the inside. The impact, on the first bend of the third heat at the Olympic Stadium in Wroclaw, sent Richardson at "full force" into the 4ft (1.25-metre) barrier, mechanic Dariusz Lapa said in a statement. Lakeside Hammers captain Richardson, known to fans as Rico, was stretched off the track while still conscious and driven by ambulance to the local accident and emergency department. But, the inquest heard, after being transferred to general surgery he suffered a cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at just after 8.30pm, prompting tributes to the 1999 world under-21 champion from across the speedway community. Recording a verdict that he died following a motorcycle accident, East Sussex coroner Alan Craze said father-of-three Richardson, who lived in St Leonards-on-Sea, would have been well aware of the dangers involved in his sport. Mr Craze said: "At the end of the day, you have got to recognise that brave and courageous people like him who want to take part in sport which carries with them a considerable degree of danger know perfectly well that there is a chance that something like this can happen. "It's a chance that they accept in most cases. "This is the first speedway death I have encountered in 15 years but I have dealt with maritime deaths and in aviation, and the people who do it are ultra careful. "They practice like anything and Lee Richardson was an extremely experienced rider, an international speedway rider. I haven't got any evidence that equipment played a part at all in causing this accident. "I can't look at it and say rider error ... and I wouldn't want to." He added: "What has happened is someone has participated in a dangerous sport voluntarily knowing the dangers of it and has become one of the very very very few who has become injured and, in this case, fatally injured."

Interesting figures, but I think that every track's attendances are way down from those of the 1980's and 90's Speedway today (apart from Cardiff) is a mid-20th century sport that hasn't reinvented itself for the 21st century. People want glamour, excitement, entertainment in a seated, smart stadium, and there is just no money in the sport in the UK to achieve those things. For heavens sake, we can't even afford to even pay all the bonus points in the PL, how desperate is that? Speedway shot to popularity in the 1920's and 30's 1. on the back of the motorcycle being the working man's personal transport. That has long-since changed, few are seen on the roads these days, and 2. on the back of the introduction of greyhound racing in 1927, whose promoters kindly built many of the city-centre stadia which ensured the establishment of our sport. And whose promoters have been, and still are, closing the remaining greyhound tracks. Time has come full circle. Throw out the specialist bikes by all means, and use only stripped down road bikes with little or no modifications allowed, devise some sort of all-weather track surface if you can - but you'd still need a big injection of capital to sort out some of the truly awful near-derelict stadiums in which our sport is raced, and I can't see where this would come from. I'm trying to be realistic, and I can't subscribe to Uncle Len's "everything in the garden is rosy" mentality. But if promoters can't see what's happening to our sport, I can only see it's future being a circus event of big stadium "entertainments" (something like motocross has become) and some Sunday afternoon events at a field in the deepest countryside.

Anyone know who is the leading light behind this series? Anyone got a name? They seem to be very shy

Never heard of "FIM Europe" Is this another name for UEM?