HenryW

Not saying it isn't the case but does anyone actually have any lists of injuries over the years to prove that there are more injuries per meeting now?

Not sure when you got into speedway but as others have pointed out, even the top guys have always picked up bad injuries. Erik Gundersen, Per Jonsson, Jan O Pedersen, Gary Havelock and Sam Ermolenko all suffered spinal injuries during their careers, some recovering much better than others...but that is 5 of the 6 World Champions from 1988 to 1993. Extending that to 1996 takes in Billy Hamill who also suffered a spinal injury. You don't get much better than the World Champions. There were many other international class riders who suffered serious injury in the same period, some who have already been mentioned. In slightly more recent times another two World Champions, Tony Rickardsson and Mark Loram, had their careers ended by injury. Top riders getting serious injuries is not something new...Obviously it would be great if we could find a way to stop these injuries but it's wrong to pretend that serious injuries to the best riders is a recent phenomenon.

IMG do pay a decent sum for the rights to host the events they have. Not sure what the FIM do with the money. I think some of it goes to prize funds for the meetings but I don't think that would cover it all. I guess people are maybe just questioning whether it would help to make speedway clubs more a part of the community rather than expecting them to provide a social service.

I could be wrong but it seems that the fences on the straights at most uk tracks are far superior to those in Poland. Here the fences are flexible and give a bit, even the ones that are wooden. Most of the ones I have seen in Poland are solid wood with solid steel supports behind them...maybe Poland needs to look at changing some of their fences to make things a little safer...

http://www.sportowefakty.pl/zuzel/543484/anders-thomsen-mistrzem-bartosz-smektala-z-brazem-final-imej-relacja

I'm looking forward to seeing what they deliver this time around, but not building up too high hopes....Their past efforts have been pretty poor when it came to the game play mechanics.

It's maybe worth taking a few moments to consider the following lists...All riders who sadly lost their lives according to the speedway "in memoriam" website. 1960-62: Derek Maynard, Witold Swiatkowski, Libor Dusanek, Erich Stieglmeier, Anton Thurner, Leszek Zienkiewicz, Bronislaw Idzikowski, Jack Unstead, Stanislaw Domaniecki, Des Simon and Arne Wettergren 1963-65: Antonin Vilde, Peter Craven, Boris Zakharov, Josef Slunecko, Peter Stirling, Tadeusz Teodorowicz, Dave Wills, Jerzy Oles, Barry Hopkin and Ray Sharp. 1966-68: Ivor Hughes, Andrzej Walicki, Poul Wissing, Harry Denton, Lionel Levy, Tadeusz Tkaczyk, Lubos Tomicek and Ken Mapp 1969-71: Roger Browne, Bernt Norrby, Marian Rose, Trevor Hobbs, Jimmy Gavros, Genadi Vyunov, Benedykt Blaskiewicz, Gordon Guasco, Jerzy Bildziukiewicz, Des Noble, Les Fielding and Valeri Klementiev Speedway has always been an incredibly dangerous sport. In the last 3 years we have tragically lost Darrin Winkler, Lee Richardson, Matej Duh and Grzegorz Knapp. Still far too many young lives being cut short, but far fewer than in the 60s.

As an Edinburgh fan who spent many years marvelling at lovely Les and his racing style, I'm not sure that he really belongs on a list like this. He raced in one World Final and whilst he came close to winning, it's not like he was someone that was expected to be a contender and he drifted from the top level fairly quickly. Of the original list a lot of them are before my time so I'm not overly qualified to decide their merit on the list. However, someone like Autrey seems like an odd inclusion. He raced in two World Finals and made the rostrum once. Is he really someone that people remember as a great contender that never made champion? I wonder what puts him above someone like Ryan Sullivan?

5th of September (2 weeks today)

Well, they managed the 30 points bit at least

What they said on UK TV was that he had a back injury which was due to be operated on in a few weeks. He wanted to limit his racing until then and if he raced tonight he wouldn't be fit to race tomorrow, but if he didn't sign in for the meeting tonight he would be banned from racing anywhere tomorrow by the FIM...So he signed in but didn't race so that he could race in the Polish league tomorrow. No idea if any of that is accurate but it was what was said on UK TV.

Do you think Tai needs to check his workshop to see if any engines are missing?

Now said on TV he has a back injury and only signed in to this meeting so that he can race tomorrow.

Do you know why?

It seems unlikely that he will push Holder, Doyle or Laguta out of the side so as long as those guys stay fit he'll probably not see any track time this season.

Great news. Although it never produced any World stars, the Linlithgow track provided many solid premier league performers over the years it was running and it would be great to see this happening again.

Always a pleasure to watch Grisha at work.

I'm not sure if that is the case. If you have an ancestry visa you are supposed to be treated the same as a citizen and do not have the same restrictions placed on you as you do with other visas.

I have to admit that I never really understood the argument about how awful someone was for offering a drug for sale...As far as I am aware BFD never forced anyone to take any drug, he just made them available. If you are dumb enough to choose to use crystal meth then surely there is a point where you need to take responsibility for your own choices rather than blame the person that made it available to buy.

I have to admit that I was surprised by the suggestion that "walk up" ticket sales would be hit hard by the weather. Away from the big indoor stadiums, surely by now the SGP series should be selling most of its tickets in advance. If it is still relying heavily on "walk up" sales, it's doing it wrong. For what it's worth, I enjoyed the meeting on TV...It was close to, if not the most entertaining GP so far this year, but the competition has been sadly lacking for that title.

The hole in that logic is the fact that several riders have been given wild cards without racing in the qualifiers in the past, including Mr Ward himself... I am sure the FIM knew what they were doing and that they knew that riders had been given wild cards without racing the qualifiers in the past, so their suspension term wasn't a blocker to him rejoining the series in 2016. If they had wanted him to be unavailable for selection to the 2016 SGP series they would have explicitly stated that in the judgement, just like they explicitly stated that all his points between the Latvian GP and his suspension date were to be removed...something that the British speedway authorities have completely ignored.

You have picked the "top premier league" riders from this year, carefully leaving out the likes of Brady Kurtz, Robert Lambert and Nick Morris who, barring any disasters for them, are all likely to go on to have international careers. At the same time you select a bunch of riders from across 5 seasons in the late 80s and early 90s, most of whom made it to a World Final. I will grant you that 1989 was a very good year for the old National League with a good few of the riders you listed all racing that year and racing at a high level, but adding in Butler, Crump and Thorp stretches the period you are covering quite considerably. Does that mean that the Premier League in the mid 2000s was super strong, as Bjerre, Kolodziej, Harris, Iversen, Zagar, Batchelor, Zetterstrom, Holder and Woffinden were all racing in the league during a 5 year period then. As for the 1981 NL...I'm not convinced that was anything special compared to recent Premier League seasons.

By train, the nearest station is Gündlkofen, which is about 2.5KM from the track.

Or maybe it's time to get harsher. Move at all and you are disqualified. That might help riders sit still.

What you say is true but in the past they used to have extra food and drink outlets during the pairs. It felt like they have gone for the cheap option now and I'll definitely think twice before returning to the pairs.