HenryW

After the precedent set last year with the Polish GPs, it seems a little strange that they haven't considered a non swede with them already having 4 full time members of the series. However, if it has to be a swede I think Linus could be feeling a little hard done by that THJ keeps getting the invites.

Edinburgh disagree with that claim. From today's Edinburgh newspaper: http://www.scotsman.com/sport/cook-rumours-denounced-as-waffle-by-monarchs-chief-1-2492798

You do realise that Patryk missed the first round of the series so was pretty much out of contention anyway? If the track was as dodgy as it sounds, you can't really blame him if he wasn't giving it full gas when his chances were already uber slim and he is just getting over an injury. Ermmm....Alex raced at Poole last year! Admittedly he didn't complete the match as he crashed out and took a ride to hospital, but he was there and racing. It was Vadim Tarasenko who didn't race at Poole last year due to visa problems.

British bureaucracy causing the problems once again, I believe. Whilst sportsmen are normally offered a simpler service for obtaining visas for international events, this seems to again have been denied to some speedway riders. The suggestion on another forum was that Loktaev was told that he would have to surrender his passport to the British consulate for up to 4 weeks, which is obviously impossible for someone continually travelling across borders to race.

A random comment, but I think that the problem is that 15 riders is too restrictive. I like the current format and scoring system as it rewards effort in every race, but I also liked the previous system for it's ability to have 22 permanent riders in the series, as that gave far more scope for including riders that were on the fringes, and also more scope for blooding young riders in the series and seeing how they coped. There almost certainly wouldn't be any fuss about including a Brit if there were 22 permanent riders in the series and two wildcards per round, as there was with the previous format, would have allowed Tai into Cardiff to see how he went as well. Whilst randomly commenting, I would also say that I think Tai should have been the wildcard for this year anyway. No disrespect to Scott, as he proved himself a worthy winner of the British Final, but is there really any point in giving him the wildcard place when he has shown he has no interest in the SGP series at the moment by not entering the qualifying rounds? Tai lost his chance in the qualifiers through injury. He deserves a chance to prove his value to the series in British GP, in my opinion.

Really? We are doing Mickey in a mousetrap? Can I offer this as a retort?

"Cheap ticket prices"..."empty seats in front of the start". It was £50 to sit in the main stand!

For a comparison like this I am not sure that including the UK Elite League serves much purpose these days. There are so few of the really top riders racing here and so many more meetings raced here that all it serves to do is skew the averages of the few that do race here.

But what about relative to Australians like Holder and Ward who are as fast as anybody at the moment? Surely someone in Harris' position has far more spare cash than young Darcy! When I was recently in Denmark, Chris was racing in a league meeting I attended. He and his "mechanic" were apparently completely inept and if it hadn't been for local man John Jorgensen going over and putting his bike together for him he wouldn't have had anything to race on that night!

My favourite is Roman Povazhny when coming from Russian Cyrillic. It seems to go to "more important than romance"

So it looks like Barker failed to even get the reserve berth if the Hungarian site is to be trusted...not that I am sure it can be. PK scorecard reads 2,3,0,1,3 with a total of 10....wtf?

From Nigel Pearson on Twitter: Smolinski 10, hans 10, lindback 10, madsen 9, magosi and zagar both on 8 after 16 heats.

Harris finishes in 11th place in a field that was far from the strongest. I trust that will ensure that we don't have to suffer watching him in the GP series in 2013.

A total collapse from Kylmakorpi sees him exit. He looked a certainty to be going through after 3 races but then failed to add another point. Dryml, Ljung, Kasprzak, Vaculik and Batchelor (and Pavlic, I guess) become the first lot into the Final.

He has an average of 4.60 in Poland (and has been dropped from the last few matches) while he is on 6.24 in Sweden. He may well score heavily in the weak Elite League over here, but his form in the major leagues is certainly not impressive.

It's a little bit off topic, but I didn't want to start a new thread for something rather random but still "Danish speedway" related.... Whilst I was over in Denmark recently, I attended the 2012 Fyn 80cc Championship meeting hosted by the Vissenbjerg-Bred Motor Klub and enjoyed it immensely. Then again, what true speedway fan wouldn't like to see 21 races of 16 kids battling each other on little bikes and delivering more passing than is usually seen in a season of Sky EL matches I recorded the final and thought I might share the video on here...The quality clearly isn't great as the autofocus lost track a little here and there (it really is the camera's fault, not where I was pointing it, honest), but there is no Nigel Pearson to listen to, so those that hate him will be OK to watch it Watching these kids slide around, it's easy to see where we have lost out....I can only dream of a time when we have this kind of racing in the UK to go and watch....

Yes, they did. The loss of Vissing hit the Fjelsted team quite hard. Palm Toft didn't deliver what Vissing would have. Went to a last heat decider, and Harris came past PK to clinch it for the visitors. No start girls at Fjelsted for Alan

No chance for me to watch the TV match today as I've been dragged along to see Fjelsted live. Hopefully your tv match and the one that I am at will both be entertaining.

Rolling averages were used, which kind of makes a mockery of anyone talking about wanting to see the best 8 teams, as the teams who have qualified are not the ones who would have made it in on current form

Same as Peterboro last week. A lovely evening and a match rained off. The sport needs to get itself sorted to protect tracks from the weather between matches

I would think it almost certainly was the smallest Parken crowd, but the unfortunate clash with Denmark playing their first match in the Euro championships almost certainly explains that. I am sure on any other weekend the Parken crowd would have been nearer it's normal size, although maybe not quite the same as there seemed to be less Poles than usual, who have possibly stayed home and saved their money for the football. As for the other ones you mention. The problems with the recent years at Gothenburg will undoubtedly have taken their toll, and I would be surprised if the contract is renewed when it expires after next year. Prague has certainly seen it's crowd appear to shrink, which isn't a great surprise as it has gotten itself a reputation as one of the dullest tracks in the series. Despite what you say about Polish GP crowds, Leszno hasn't been even close to full in any of the recent years, and the changes to the stadium and related change in ticket pricing looked to shrink the crowd slightly further this year. Whether Cardiff can survive a drop this year will be interesting to see. As you say, the economic climate isn't great and there are a few other major sporting events for people to be splashing their cash on.

Much credit to Leszno for managing to grab a draw from this one. I really thought they stood no chance without Jarek, but Jurica and Damian really dug deep in the latter stages to get something out of this match. However, possibly more import was the fact that Ryan Sullivan dropped right off the pace in his last few races for some reason.

Obviously he wouldn't have been a popular choice with the local fans, but surely Patryk Dudek deserves a chance. He is the top young Pole in the leagues so far this year and seems to be getting ignored.

Is this focus on yellow especially for racers and royals

I am now lost as to who is being sarcastic and who is being genuine with their belief that a rider who ends last in a semi or final deserves points..... I will state categorically that I believe that last place in any race deserves no points, so the current system works for me... Why should a rider who makes a semi final on, let's say 7 points, get a further reward over and above others that also finished on 7 points who missed out on the semi final just because of a difference of race wins, second places, etc, etc.....They already got their reward by getting a semi final place and a chance to make more points by beating other riders.. If they can't make anything better than a last out of that, why should they be given an extra point? Similarly, anyone who made the final has already had the benefit of at least 2 extra points due to their semi final appearance....If they can't beat someone in the final, why should they get more??