HenryW

Sky's website says that Eurosport is included with the basic £22 package.

Grudziadz are running a meeting on Sunday as well, which could be of interest to anyone who is heading up to Gdansk to travel home... It's not too far off the Torun to Gdansk road. I think they said it was a pairs format meeting.

Max Fricke is surely already in having finished 3rd in the GP Challenge meeting.

When it comes to Greg, I think that Phil Rising said it best a few years ago when talking about a possible wildcard for a different rider, who was much younger than Greg.... "Look to the future. ****** is a lovely guy but frankly has had his time and does he really get the pulses racing..." As far as I can see, this fits perfectly for Greg...

It's good to see that the "week" away from racing has helped Ricky recover enough to deliver a max...I'm sure that Poole will be excited to have him back in the team for their next meeting

Oops...Sorry, I missed this request Just for my own "entertainment", I do love to play about with speedway statistics. So, to explain the figures that I posted.... I consider each race as a collection of head to head contests between the riders in the race, ignoring team mates....So for the stats posted on this thread, every race was considered as separate Red v White, Red v Yellow, Blue v White and Blue v Yellow contests. I then used an adaptation of the Bradley-Terry Model to calculate the probability of each rider beating every other rider in the league. I then use these probability numbers to calculate a traditional British CMA based on the hypothetical scenario where every rider who has raced in the league meets every other rider who has raced in the league just once. Hopefully that makes sense...I know there are flaws with the concept and I would never base my betting on a specific race around the probabilities that it produces, but as a stats geek I kinda like what I see in the results that this model generates over the long term.

To be fair, speedway wise, that event "abroad" was more "at home" to Tai than anywhere in the UK... Not that I am disagreeing with your overall point, just making a random drunken comment

My top 20 riders, as of today, based on a calculation that I am happy to explain if anyone cares (I know you don't) are: Danny Ayres 10.98 Tom Brennan 10.97 Max Clegg 10.76 Ellis Perks 10.70 George Wood 10.48 Ben Morley 10.29 Danyon Hume 9.98 Ben Wilson 9.90 Drew Kemp 9.87 Anders Rowe 9.79 Ryan Kinsley 9.75 Leon Flint 9.73 Jordan Palin 9.71 Kyle Bickley 9.62 Tom Perry 9.42 Dan Gilkes 9.05 Connor Coles 8.89 Joe Lawlor 8.84 Nathan Stoneman 8.79 Josh Bailey 8.76

My top 20 riders, as of today, based on a calculation that I am happy to explain if anyone cares (I know you don't) are: Sam Masters 10.98 Craig Cook 10.89 Charles Wright 10.47 Daniel King 10.13 Erik Riss 9.92 Rory Schlein 9.89 Scott Nicholls 9.69 Chris Harris 9.68 Edward Kennett 9.61 Nick Morris 9.55 Aaron Summers 9.54 Richard Worrall 9.46 Richard Lawson 9.46 Rasmus Jensen 9.35 Adam Ellis 9.34 Ryan Douglas 9.26 Cameron Heeps 8.98 Michael Palm Toft 8.97 Steven Worrall 8.92 Nicolas Covatti 8.87

My top 20 riders, as of today, based on a calculation that I am happy to explain if anyone cares (I know you don't) are: Niels Kristian Iversen 10.46 Jason Doyle 10.41 Max Fricke 10.05 Troy Batchelor 9.99 Brady Kurtz 9.37 Kenneth Bjerre 9.28 Craig Cook 9.27 Robert Lambert 9.00 Jack Holder 9.00 Rasmus Jensen 9.00 Sam Masters 8.92 Nicolai Klindt 8.72 Jacob Thorssell 8.62 Rory Schlein 8.57 Tobiasz Musielak 8.24 Rohan Tungate 8.18 Josh Grajczonek 8.17 Daniel King 8.06 Richard Lawson 7.89 Adam Ellis 7.77

I forgot about Sam being out that year too... There were a few years there in the late 80's and early 90's where properly serious injuries cut the depth of the challengers in the World Championships. Some serious "what if" chat could be had around those years! Erik, Sam, Tommy, JanO, Per and Todd...and there are probably others that I am forgetting.

I know it won't be a popular opinion with you, but I am sure Per benefited from Erik's sad exit from the sport. The 1990 World Champ would have been Erik or Hans again if Erik hadn't been taken out the sport. Todd...Yeah, he wasn't anything special other than his gating ability. Although, he DID probably do more farewell laps than any other rider in SGP history

Erik Gundersen. There are loads of riders over the years that I have been a big fan of and been entertained by, but none of them really come close to Erik...I just wish that we could have enjoyed watching him racing for a few more years.

Well, he certainly showed them... I'm sure none of them could find anything to criticise in his performance last night

I think they just use the race positions count system...So in order it would be Thomsen, Aspgren, Pavlic and then Loktaev.

Unfortunately for those boys, the challenge doesn't provide the series reserves any more. The reserves are just selected.

The top 10 are pretty tight, but the man in 11th, 1 point behind 10th is apparently totally out of touch...Is that what you are saying?

The only Pole that I can think of that isn't in the series but can definitely be considered as in the top 16 in the World just now is Piotr Pawlicki. Unfortunately the PZM appeared to decided to punish the better riders, like Piotr, for standing up for rider safety earlier in the year, so he didn't get a chance in the qualifiers. Drabik is probably close to that level as well, but not quite there yet. He also missed out because of the PZM decisions this year. I've never been convinced that it's a good idea to hold a 1 off meeting to select qualifiers for the GP series, and holding them at rarely used venues that allow for very little racing is definitely a poor choice, so I agree with you there. However, I think you might be getting a bit confused about the venue for next weeks GP. At 314m, I think it's a bit of a stretch to call it a long track, and it definitely holds a few speedway meetings every year.

I heard Birkemose won his first 4 before a bad gate 5th time out and only being able to pick off 2 of them. Not sure what happened to him in the final but was told he finished 3rd.

Was it just 3 years ago that Gorzow and Torun raced off for the title? It was something like that... What a turnaround for both clubs!

Oh dear... Running a meeting like this in dodgy conditions is the worst possible option as it almost guarantees someone unusual having a good night.

Last I heard he was planning to race in Poland on Friday and then head for Gorican.

The poor lad has dislocated his shoulder so many times over the years...Hopefully he shouldn't be out too long if that's all he has done.

Heat 14 was the only race that someone managed to pass him, so it might have been bothering him, but presumably can't be too bad when he could still race.

He didn't quite make the gate in that one and got squeezed out...Part way through the race he pulled up mid corner and lifted his arm before getting going again...I thought he was unhappy about something that had happened but it seems he might have done something to his shoulder mid race...He got it strapped up in the pits and was also wearing a sling after the meeting.