HenryW

Firstly, I think the quality of Egon's entire career is fairly irrelevant when discussing his merit as the 1983 World Champion. By that stage he was about 34 years old, had past his prime and was losing interest in the sport. His next two World Final results were more representative of his true abilities at that stage of his career. However, even taking into account his entire career, I still don't believe that Muller was better than Havelock. Secondly, mentioning the fact that he was a multi-discipline World Champion is also irrelevant to a discussion about his ability as a speedway rider in 1983. He was a pretty good lounge singer as well by all accounts. Would you like to include that as proof that he was more deserving in 1983 than Gary Havelock was in 1992? Thirdly, for a rider who had just one good year, Havvy still managed to finish another World Final higher placed than Egon did....and let's not forget that Havvy's career at the very highest level was effectively ended with his back injury while he was still only about 28, and had made a good start to the GP season that year. Good to see that you still threw in the insults again as well when you have no idea about the international speedway knowledge or background of those making the comments. You dismiss Gary and mock us because apparently we only consider British results. Just when did they move Wroclaw out of the UK? I guess it must have been some time after 1992! When did Egon Muller win anything at the top level of speedway outside of his own country? I don't believe I have dropped to the level of such insults, so hopefully you aren't including me when making that comment. I respect your views, but simply disagree with them. I like our sport having a more "proven" World Champion. I would have loved to have seen Erik and Hans go head to head for multiple rounds in the late 80s to see which one really did have the upper hand on the big occasion. One off World Finals gave an extra level of excitement for that one night, but I would rather see the top riders going head to head more often. Again, I will repeat that I don't think the GP series is perfect. It's Far from it, but I think it's an improvement on what we had before....but I guess you'll never agree with that

I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking that...I was starting to question my sanity for a bit there

Oooh! That was a bit patronising, was it not? I can assure you that I do look beyond British results. I also still believe that Havelock was a far better speedway rider than Muller!

I agree that there weren't many fluke champions, and agree that the one off finals were often very entertaining. There is also nothing to say that with a GP series in place, the riders who won the titles in the years that I mentioned wouldn't still have come out on top. For example, if there hadn't been a GP series during his career, you would probably have said that Leigh Adams would have been a World Champion under a GP format...but we all know that he doesn't translate his normal form to SGP form. Quite simply, from a purely sporting perspective I find the GP series a much more satisfactory way to determine the World Champion. I certainly don't think that the current system is perfect, as I already mentioned I would like to see the inclusion of more riders for one thing, but I believe that it is an improvement over what was there before. Finally...I haven't got a clue about Freddie Williams abilities, but I would strongly disagree with the suggestion that Egon Muller was a better speedway rider and more deserving champion than Gary Havelock!

I'm not convinced that's the only way. I've seen 20 heat matches won by riders that certainly weren't the best on the night due to many factors, such as controversial exclusions, luck with gate positions as conditions changed, engine failures, etc. Even discounting these anomalies, you are still only finding the best rider on one day, on one track with one set of conditions....so there is still plenty of scope for "the best" not to come out on top. Having several rounds doesn't entirely remove all of these factors, but it does lessen their impact and make it more likely that the "best" will rise to the top. Of course, by doing that, you are inherently making the final result more predictable...just like the top two in the English Premier League is far easier to predict than the top two in the FA Cup! I can't speak with any authority as those were before my time, and I only have a few matches from each year that were covered by TV to make a judgment on, so I bow to your superior knowledge in telling me whether they were indeed the very best in the exact years that they won the title! However the guys who were consistently at the top of the sport would obviously still be more likely to win more Finals than others. The one off final doesn't ensure an unfair result, it just makes it more likely than having combined scores over multiple rounds. From the years where I am more familiar with rider form, I would suggest that 1983, 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1994 probably didn't give the title to the best rider in World (and I probably should also include a couple of the years that Erik won it, but I am too much of a fan of his to do that! ) The most obvious one there being the 1983 Title. No matter how much anyone loved the old format for the excitement and drama it provided (not that there was any excitement ON the track that day), there is no way that you can ever argue that Egon Muller was the World's best speedway rider in 1983. He was the best on that one day on that one track, of that there is no question, but there is no way you can claim him to be the best rider that year!

Interestingly, both the examples that you gave were things that led to unfair results in one-off events, and they were ditched. That wouldn't suggest a rush back to the old one off World Final was on the cards! Only problem is...look at the National Champions. Whilst Chris Holder would be an interesting addition, I really can't see that including Magnus Zetterstrom and Adam Skornicki in the SGP would have the fans flocking back! (should I point out that both of these weak and unlikely National champions won in one-off National Finals?) Although I don't agree with the choice, I think it's probably a little harsh suggesting that Gorican and Togliatti are more active speedway centres than Vojens!! Whilst the SGP IS looking like quite a closed shop, the problem is that the top guys really don't change much from year to year. To have a credible series, you HAVE to have the best in there, and that means that the names at the top wont change that much. It's the same in most sports run along similar lines. To me, the problem is that 16 riders just isn't enough to give opportunities for new riders coming along. You saw more interesting results when there were 24 riders involved, but that was ditched for financial reasons, which does obviously call into question the viability of the series.

I haven't been following what has been going on over the last few weeks, but I thought that there was a proposal on the table to limit each team to 1 foreign rider each per match...If this does come in, and the league only has 20 or 24 matches in the season, which seems the most likely, there aren't going to be too many opportunities for foreign riders.

The famous Oktyabrsky club didn't race in the 2008 season after losing their sponsor, and the chances of them returning for 2009 always seemed slim. As mentioned by Schumi, of the 5 clubs that participated in the 2008 season one of them was Ukrainian, and there have been some doubts over whether they would be competing in the Russian league again in 2009. A few years ago, things seemed to be looking good for Russian speedway as the number of clubs slowly increased. Unfortunately it looks like they pushed into the foreign rider market too soon and shot themselves in the foot. Hopefully the sport over there can recover from this setback.

Not sure if I count as a GP apologist or not....I have certainly defended the GP series in the past, so I may well be on your list. I have posted elsewhere today that I think that the inclusion of Harris is a disgrace, just like I thought that including Kasprzak last year was a disgrace. However, despite Kasper's inclusion, the nominated riders averaged 72 points in the series this season while the qualifiers averaged 58....I'm pretty confident that similar results will be seen between the qualifiers and nominations again next year. In my view, there are two problems with the SGP at the moment. One is that there are not enough places. The other is that the qualification system is a joke. A move back to a 24 man field would be great....Ideally I'd like to see a qualifying match for the bottom 8 from the previous GP and 8 "outsiders" on the Friday....with GP points being allocated to the non qualifiers that competed on the Friday. The 8 outsiders could be nominated riders to ensure that the series was kept up to date with the "in form" riders at the time. A move away from having qualifiers would also be great. Let the cream be picked from World speedway rather than having one off matches to provide the field for an entire season of competition. If it was down to the GP Challenge, the top 8 would now be joined by Bjerre, Ulamek, Walsek, Iversen, Jedrzejak, Sullivan and Monberg. Much as I detest the selection of Harris....I am way happier with that than seeing the bulk of those guys in the SGP series (not saying I wouldn't like to see some of them in there)....Assuming that we are stuck with a 16 rider field just now, if all 7 were nominated we would almost certainly be seeing Hampel, Holder and PUK next year....Now we have to wait to see them in the series

Not strictly true. He beat Rune Holta in heat 22 of that match. He also beat Jarek Hampel earlier in the evening, and I would argue that Jarek is a far superior rider than some of the qualified riders for next year, but that is slightly irrelevant. Don't get me wrong, I am certainly NOT advocating that Tai is ready for the SGP series. As someone who does regularly travel to GPs, I can honestly say that I would love to see some exciting new blood in the competition, but more importantly I want to see the very best racing in it. If the exciting young riders are better than the current crop, then yes they should be included. However, I'm not convinced that there are many ready for that. Emil and Chris were the obvious candidates. It appears that Emil is in and Chris isn't. I'm excited that Emil will be racing and disappointed that Chris wont. You pick on Greg but what are you saying, that he should be pushed out because he is getting old? Ignoring the GP series, Greg finished 3rd in the averages in both Poland and Sweden. He is clearly still at the absolute top of the game and fully deserves his place in the series regardless of his age. Anyway, back in the "brilliant" one off world final days, did Ivan Mauger not win the World Title when he was older than Greg currently is?

In that case, how did Ed Kennett come to be a B grade rider? What I read, he said he would definitely not race in Sweden if he gets a wild card (which he apparently now has), but he wanted to race in Britain before the start of the GP series to get in some practice before the early GPs.

I'm getting a bit sick of reading people bleating about Greg being robbed as well...From the way some were writing on here, you'd think Greg couldn't ride Bydgoszcz at all, and Tomek couldn't ride temporary tracks at all..... It's just a shame that Greg won at Bydgoszcz earlier this year and Tomek won at Parken earlier this year to totally discredit those arguments. Yes, Tomek's chances of outscoring Greg possibly improved when the venue changed, but it didn't gift it to Tomek, he still had to go out and race for it. If a decent temporary surface had been provided last weekend, unlike the one served up at Cardiff year after year, I'm sure Tomek would have been out giving his absolute best, and might well have repeated his achievement in Parken...and if Greg had spent less time worrying about being hard done by and more time concentrating on his racing, maybe he would have won at Bydgoszcz last night! Of course, he might also have just been delighted because he had retained his World title and joined an Elite band of Danish riders with 3 World Titles.

If someone in Australia thinks they can make money on an SGP round, or just wants to inflate their own ego by running one, surely IMG would be daft not to accept their offer and at least give the appearance of the series being slightly more Global.

Totally disagree. I think Scott adds a lot to the GP series, and I genuinely think he is within the top 15 in the World. Just because he isn't in the top 8, does that mean that he shouldn't be included in the series? When I go to a GP, I want to see the best riders in the World racing, and I don't think there are 8 riders currently outside of the top 8 that are better than Scott. Unfortunately, thanks to the qualifying system, we already have below standard riders in the field every year. The picks hopefully wont add more next year! Sad in some ways, but a fact of life in all professional motorsport. It's the sponsors that keep things going....Capitalism, isn't it great?

...or Britain

I'm only guessing here, but probably because they own the shale that is used at Parken and that was what was taken to Germany. You might have noticed that the Parken track has been much better than Cardiff and that is allegedly because the shale used there is used solely for the temporary tracks and has had other materials mixed into it to make it bind better, unlike the Cardiff surface which is just loaned for the week.

If they were going to choose a different wild card, why would they pick Holder rather than Sajfutdinov? Emil has shown quite clearly that he has the measure of Chris at World Championship level, so he would surely be the choice if there was going to be a new wild card.

LMAO. Clutching at straws or what? Because a mess was made of one event, the whole series must end? Would it not be more sensible to call for the removal of the person in charge of track preparation? You might not like the GP series, but it's a far better way of establishing the best rider in the World than the old format. No...It sums up the way that the tracks are prepared at temporary venues. It says nothing about the series itself.

Is Antonio expected to be the only new signing, or are Bydgoszcz still chasing another big name rider to join the squad? If that is the entire top end filled, it's not looking the best for you guys for next season The suggestion that TRick might be coming back to get involved in the sport again sounds exciting, especially if he could take Emil under his wing. There might be no stopping the kid if he gets that sort of backing and organisational assistance.

I think you are maybe missing the point that SCB seems to be making. Tai's achievements this season are special when taking into consideration his age and his experience, however they are not special when compared to all riders regardless of their age or experience, and those are who he needs to be compared with when suggesting he should receive a GP place...That's what was being discussed, whether he was deserving of a GP place next season...and he clearly isn't yet ready for that level.

Well done to Emil, deserved it for his work from the back today. It's clear that William Lawson should be the Brit that gets the GP place for next year

Adams and Hancock maybe....The last thing they want is Tomek waving goodbye just now. There just isn't a credible contender for the Polish crowd without him at the moment.

They allowed reserves last year, then took them away again this year. I really didn't understand that move. Edit - a completely inept performance from Morten Risager was also a fairly important factor in Denmark's loss.

I guess the stalling tactics to get Kildemand back to the track before the end of the match didn't pay off then

Apparently Kildemand is going to return for his last race