OveFundinFan

A British Open Championship would be open to riders from anywhere, not just British, not just riders in the British League - but anyone....could be anyone ie NKI, Milik, Smolinski etc

I well remember Gordon McGregor riding for Belle Vue - he was tall (for a speedway rider) and an upright position on the bike. Noted for his well trimmed moustache. Rode for BV in the sixties and I dont think he was young then.

We had 2 GPs and my recollection is that they have been good racing. Its a track made for the day, but outside and they seem to have cracked the laying of temporary tracks.

Clearly what BT (and Sky before) needs are crowds to attend, and that aint going to happen unless a few things are in place, including ......... a track capable of producing good racing riders that are up for good racing teams that fans can relate to meetings that run efficiently, that finish within a reasonable time, no unnecessary hold ups (no pit gate open for false starts), track grading kept to minimum stadiums that can provide good facilities for the paying public - thats doesnt have to be fancy grandstands, but sufficient clean toilets, a choice of snack foods of decent quality a pricing structure to attract fans, especially the younger generation.

Just because NZ has done it doesnt mean to say UK has to. Call it British Open Championship and invite as many foreign riders as wanted if needed to put on a good show), BUT the title is British Open Championship (not British Champion) and make it the rule the top British rider will get the Cardiff GP wild card.

Ken McKinley has to be in top 5, and at the top in my opinion - he had world final appearances - 9 of them plus 2 at reserve. Twice finished 5th, one of those tied in 3rd place with Aub Lawson and Peter Craven, coming 3rd in the run off. Great record that is

Already a thread running............... http://www.speedway-forum.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=84480&hl=

highside, PR covered that era in his original post D Cox - chose the right words such that pukka Brits ride in the British Championship. Whichever way you pick on the words in a post - its still a disgrace that a non-Brit can win a British Championship and get the prize of a wild card at the British Gran Prix. Ridiculous.

and judging by all the moans and groans on here leading up to last Mondays Brit Final - yes, there are people who care. Having come back to speedway 4/5 years ago, I only been to live speedway at Cardiff (3 times) and the World Cup meetings at BV last year. Cant bring myself to spending my hard earned pension watching what is now a sport I can hardly recognise. British speedway is in the doldrums, we all know that, and a farce like Brit final does nothing to improve things. Even a non-Brit in the top three is bad enough. Last Monday MUST NOT be repeated, the British Final is for British passport holders/born in Britain

Sorry - I went off topic in my earlier post Back to Liam Carr, I think its a good thing he did - thats a true sportsman. Yes you compete to win, either for individual honour or for a team......but it shouldnt be win at all cost. Just look at football with the dives and dramatics when someone gets fouled, the famous "hand of god" goal - still being talked about after all those years. In speedway, at the tapes, rider on inside moves, man on gate 2 follows - touches tapes and gets excluded, man on gate 1 gets a rerun. Its not right, its not in good sportsmanship.....but it will carry on...........well done Liam I say

Could be TripleH was using a mobile or tablet to type the original post. I assume predictive text has more to do with using mobiles/tablets then pc's. Best way of typing using a mobile is with the 2 thumbs, and can be very slow (unless you an 8 year old growing up with mobiles), so to speed the process up there is predictive text. This is where the software predicts a word, shows it, and you select if you want it, thus saving what can be huge amounts of time. There is usually a choice of words predicted, very often one of the predictions is correct so can be very useful. The software also learns what the person typing has said in the past and sometimes surprises me in what it has chosen. Can be a real pain at times when it gets the word incorrect but puts it in anyway.

Should be thankful that someone agreed to pickup after Sky went out.

Arne Pander (Andy Pandy as I used to call him) was a good rider, but riding at the time when Fundin, Moore, Craven and Briggs ruled the roost, he didnt match up to them. With the class of the Danish riders since, Arne would come well down my list. Morian Hansen I have heard of, but he never won the Danish championship (2nd once, third once) never mind doing anything in the world championship. Never heard of Baltzar hansen, and he doesnt even appear in the top three in any Danish championship. Olsen and Nielsen were awesome, but apart from Nicki I never got to see much of Gundersen and nothing of the other great Danes.

Apologies, TWK, I took it the wrong way

With reference to 1978 when Peter Collins fuel was tampered with. That was at Coventry if I remember right, and was it sugar they found in the fuel? Yep, I remember that. Did they ever find out who done it??? I took that to read that it was "tmc" top five.

If you not seen Emil - Miedzinski crash August 2013 take a look. Finished Emils year whe he was in with a strong chance of being world champ, and who knows if its still affecting him now. Certainly as he gets older he will suffer with his heath because of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da-5O8wY_RA and Emil was excluded!

Touch the tapes and your excluded - no exclusions so no one excluded. Move and the referee has the choice of judging an unfair start so all riders called back Discussion on here seems to imply the ref can give a moving rider a warning - which it seems he did during Mondays meeting.

So its heat 14, restarted after first bend incident between Doyle and Medzinski, in rerun Medzinski goes from the fence straight to inside but Doyle already there. Medzinski goes into fence but persime thats where Doyle got injury to right foot. Medzinskis move was similar to what Nicki Pedersen did in one of his two GPs this year - took someone to the fence then wants to go to the inside all in one move - not on .

If speedway bounces from one contractor to another then that could kill the sport as much as what else is going on. I am prepared to pay to watch speedway on TV but would find it very difficult having to change say from BT one tear to Sky the next and whoever else for the third year. Different lengths of contract, different equipment etc all add to the costs for a viewer and I can easily imagine the situation when enough is enough. What I need is continuity, football has fixed term contracts, so will other sports - Moto GP has a 3 year contract and so on. For speedway to start jumping from one to the other each year is a no from me. Its now took me 4 months of a year to change from Sky to BT, and its not complete yet. I for one could be lost to speedway for good.

To be fair and balance the situation, I was with TalkTalk for 2 consecutive contracts and didnt have any problem with them. Waiting to transfer to BT and having loads of problems - which may be more down to Openreach rather then BT

Russia were in the world cup qualifiers last year. They turned up at Belle Vue on the Friday night - Emil plus the two Lagutas and disappointed massively. Shame

He seriously need looking into even if this report is half right. He did more then enough damage to Emil - I never forget that crash. Its one thing being a danger to yourself, but when others are put at risk its time to protect others.

Well, I am supporting BT as much as I can in as much I signed up to have BT Infinity fast fibre and tv package in 2 rooms. Trouble is, I ordered that off BT 9th March, given a start date of 29th March, well in time for the first Speedway GP at end of April, and I am still waiting for Openreach to complete the job of getting the fibre cable from literally across the road (on a "private" estate) to a connection box behind my garden shed, then into the house (partly done). Excuse after excuse given by the poor bloke working for BT who faithfully rings me every week to report the progress. Informed last Friday that today, Tues 19th, an engineer from Openreach would be coming to sign off the job so the final connection can be made next week. I told him last Friday no engineers have been to dig up the road/my drive to get the fibre cable across the road up my drive to the box behind my shed. He assured me it had been done, I assured him there is no digging visible in the road nor my drive. Today he rings to say the connection is going ahead next week. I told him no inspection was made today. Poor guy, he just reading a computer screen no doubt. Meanwhile I'm still waiting to start paying BT in return for their investment.

The commentators picked up in the heat when two riders caused a rerun that the two innocent riders went straight back to the tapes, the two guilty ones stopped at the pit gate to be attended to by pit crew. Keep the pit gates closed for straightforward tape infringements. Easy decision to make. Whose call is it to open the pit gates??? Gag him. I too have missed on a recording the a final because the meeting had run over schedule. Very annoying.

Peter Collins could well have had 3 on the trot. 1975 could well have been a win had someone irresponsibly not watered the track. and in 1977 in Sweden was just a week after smashing his leg on a grid cover - I was there that night at BV and unusually I was stood on the bend where it happened. Sickening