HenryW

I'm not really sure that this is a valid argument when it comes to Vaculik. He finished 8th in his semi final so if there were no wildcard entries he would have been in the final anyway. Lindgren is slightly different as he finished lower but in a meeting that was shortened due to rain. I've not actually studied who had met who at the time of the call off but there always some that get easier rides and some tougher in those circumstances...maybe it was even Smoli himself who got the easier races. Being the lowest scoring qualifier it wouldn't have taken much to have knocked him out in the last 2 rounds of races if they had happened.

Tai doesn't have to be World Champ if Greg was deemed not to be eligible to receive the title. No-one was promoted to 2nd in 1990 when they deemed Shawn Moran wasn't eligible to race in the Final after a prior drug test failure.

I see Nicki has given his thoughts on the situation: http://ekstrabladet.dk/sport/anden_sport/motorsport/speedway/forarget-nicki-efter-grotesk-vm-farce-det-skal-have-konsekvenser/6364228

Just as a fun aside, I think the rule being discussed is actually in the rulebook thanks to PePe Protasiewicz. He qualified as first reserve in 2010 and after doing a couple of rounds in the middle of the season decided that he couldn't be bothered with other meetings, leaving Davey Watt to race those..until the series made its way to Bydgoszcz for the final round which PePe decided he fancied racing in. There was a bit of an outcry that he could pick and choose rounds like this and the debated rule was added for the following season.

I thought I'd add in my rankings to this thread. These are only up to last weekend and don't include National Championships yet which the OPs do and also include a few more leagues than his but they shouldn't make too much difference as few if any of the top guys race in the extra leagues I have included. The actual rating value is supposed to be able to be used to directly compare riders in a head to head. If 2 riders have the same value they have a 50/50 chance of winning against each other so, as you can see, the top 4 are very close. Much closer than in previous years I have tried this rating system. 1 Greg Hancock 25,094.69 2 Bartosz Zmarzlik 25,002.43 3 Jason Doyle 24,555.35 4 Tai Woffinden 24,099.30 5 Patryk Dudek 20,002.91 6 Chris Holder 17,253.11 7 Niels K Iversen 16,757.95 8 Grigoriy Laguta 16,289.12 9 Krzysztof Kasprzak 15,373.96 10 Nicki Pedersen 15,122.61 11 Antonio Lindbäck 14,765.13 12 Martin Vaculik 13,888.86 13 Emil Sajfutdinov 13,219.45 14 Janusz Kolodziej 13,212.64 15 Przemek Pawlicki 12,897.99 16 Piotr Pawlicki 12,541.47 17 Piotr Protasiewicz 12,459.32 18 Vaclav Milik 12,440.65 19 Fredrik Lindgren 11,940.69 20 Leon Madsen 11,627.19

Personally I'm more disappointed in his decision to walk out the meeting. Riders have been excluded many times over the years for things that they don't agree with, but walking out and stiffing the fans that have paid good money to see him is pretty despicable. Riders get bans for refusing to start in GP and SWC events. Will a similar punishment come for someone leaving the event early?

It does look fairly clear cut now. The only question mark might be against giving a place to a fourth Pole but there aren't many better candidates, to be fair. On form this year Laguta is probably the only other outsider that might have a genuine claim that I can think of. However, it's hard to imagine them going with 2 Russians, neither of whom did the qualifying rounds.

Austria last competed in 2004, finishing last in the qualifying round in Gyula. France last competed in 2013, finishing last in the qualifying round in Miskolc. Since 2013 there has only been 1 qualifying round rather than 2.

Those would definitely make some interesting reading

Do you publish your rankings anywhere? I'd be interested in comparing them to the ones that I create

Injury did prevent him from contesting the qualifiers this year, though. Whether he would have entered this year without the injury is another matter but he has said he will race the qualifiers in 2017 if he doesn't get a wildcard.

If I am reading the previously linked article correctly it seems to suggest that riders without a home league can race in two other leagues as well as the Polish Extraliga. The difference is that they must give priority to the Polish Extraliga and the other two leagues must provide written confirmation that this is the case. Riders with a home league can give priority to that league with the Extraliga 2nd priority and their 3rd league at the bottom of the priority list. Obviously online translations are never 100% accurate so that might not be correct. I also didn't see anything suggesting whether a rider could do 2 other leagues if they choose not to race in their home league.

Did you mean to include Emil's next tweet in reply to being asked about SGP next year? EmilRacing89 @FreddycpPope if I will get offer than I'm ready to come back ... if not I do quali next year for @SpeedwayGP

As an Edinburgh fan it pains me to say it, but I suspect that they are happy to sit and wait for their planning permission to sell the land for housing. Next year is possibly too soon for that to all be organised which may explain why they are happy to offer another season, but it doesn't look good for longer term at Armadale.

Danes don't have to race in their own National league if they don't want to. I guess that would depend how they wrote the rules. Those riders were only interested in coming over here because one or both of their other clubs were finished for the season. As long as they were only riding one other league at a time it might fit with what the Poles intend.

Richard Hall raced in the qualifiers one year as well. 2014 maybe?

Does anyone have a link to the scores going into this meeting? I know the top 5 but was wondering about lower down.

Absolutely, I agree with everything you say. I was just covering the legality of it. If they decided to go forward with this it'll be interesting how it plays out. The Polish league is currently the top payer so would riders prefer to stick with the other leagues or take the money from Poland?

As others have said, that's irrelevant. If an employer wants to put an exclusivity clause into their contract it's perfectly legal. As long as they are covering minimum pay laws in their country they surely don't have any issue with EU employment law.

How often do you see football players turning out for clubs in multiple Countries? Do you think that's because players don't fancy getting double wages or because they aren't allowed to do it?

So...what you are saying is that there were 8 riders racing in the GP and 50% of them had an average in excess of 8 points. Going for really basic arithmetic, that suggests that anyone in the top half of the GP standings should have an average in excess of 8. Antonio Lindback is in the top half of the GP series. Interesting. What now? This makes no sense at all...Do you not know how averages are calculated or do you just not understand basic arithmetic at all? As suggested above...NO. Ignoring everything I said before, let's remember that we are not talking about a rider being brought in for the season, we are talking about an injury replacement being brought in only for the play off matches, so not exactly the same thing as building your entire season around this rider. Looking at it that way, does it make any sense that a rider who isn't even good enough to be in the GP series can be replaced by someone who is in the top half of the GP standings based on the idea that the rider he is replacing is better than him?? Or, to put it another way...Do you think that Hans Andersen is a better rider than Antonio Lindback?

Emil was out injured when the qualification process started this year...Sounds like he's a perfect candidate if he wants a place

Just under an hour by train. It looks like the last train on a Saturday night leaves at 22:12 so would be tight after a GP with a normal start time. It's probably irrelevant, though, as I'm sure they have said in the past that Pardubice aren't interested in staging a GP round.

Indianerna looking very weak today with Joel Andersson at number 1 and no rider at number 6. It seems that Antonio Lindback has refused to race as he hasn't been paid by the club for a chunk of the season.

They had R/R earlier in the season but lost that. Justin Sedgmen and then Alex Loktaev replaced Hampel in the meetings after they lost R/R. Neither of them were scoring points.With Hampel's performances last week and yesterday, using him was really the only choice they had.