HenryW

I have it on good authority, from fellow forum member Rico, that Pepe was in sensational form around Wroclaw yesterday and that he should immediately be offered the wild-card for the GP there next season based on this performance. Apparently he didn't manage to win the meeting due to mechanical problems, but was the best man on show. (old man Sławek Drabik won the meeting for anyone interested) I would certainly support Pepe's nomination as wild-card and will buy my ticket for the GP there as soon as his appearance is confirmed.

I hear what you are saying about new blood in the series, and in the long term this could become a concern, but I don't think there is any point in including different riders just for the sake of having new faces. It's better to have the top 15 riders racing in the GP series, even if that means that the field doesn't change too much each year. I would hope that BSI would be intelligent enough to spot genuine contenders when they appear, and offer them a place in the series. I would also hope that if a rider comes in as a one-off wildcard and does really well, they would be given another opportunity soon after, a bit like they did with Mark Loram (I think it was in 1999). As for your feelings on Lukas....hey, who can blame you for backing your own man. I really hope that he can find his form again, as I think that he is an incredibly exciting rider when he is on form.

No, I did mean to write 13. People were questioning why BSI didn't just say that the top 13 were guaranteed a place in the next GP series, and it is obviously to ensure that if a top star has a serious problem and finishes outside of that top 13, they could still be given a place in the next series. IF they simply guaranteed places to the top 13 riders plus 2 qualifiers, it would mean that this rider has to miss out. I hope I maybe explained it better this time! I too have very high regard for Lukas, but since his injury problems last year he has not been half the rider he was before. He had a disasterous season in the GP series and his league average has fallen dramatically. I think it is a sensible decision to leave him out of the series next year to give him a chance to regain his fitness, confidence or whatever has been lacking this year. I would still expect him to make at least one wildcard appearance, and if he does well there, then more could come later. I also agree that Rune Holta had a similar case to Ryan Sullivan, and there was probably very little to choose between them. The fact that Ryan finished above Rune in the season standings is probably the only reason that he received the place. I think that the field for next seasons GP series probably has about the top 13 or 14 riders in the World at the moment. If you were going to offer more places for the qualifiers, then more current GP riders would race in qualifying rounds, putting an even greater strain on the National Leagues (especially the British one). As it is, there will be no qualifying rounds next year, and I personally don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.

It's surely just there to make sure that any unforseen circumstances can be accounted for. If someone like Jason Crump or Tony Rickardsson had been injured early in the season and missed out on a top 13 slot, they could still be given a place in the GP for next year. Similarly, if there had been someone outside of the GP series who had been absolutely sensational all season, but had bad luck in the qualifiers, they could still be offered a place in the series if BSI felt they would be worthwhile. Why do you say that? If Jarek had finished just outside of the top 8, I would have expected him to be the first man nominated for a wildcard. I do, however, think that BSI may have been happier if Tom Chrzanowski hadn't qualified, as I expect they would probably have liked to include one of the other top Poles in the series, but couldn't justify giving Poland a quarter of the field. You also suggested earlier that Ryan Sullivan is living on past glories, and while I agree that this hasn't been one of his best seasons, he did still make it to a GP final and achieve a very respectable average in all the leagues that he raced in. I don't think you can even begin to compare Ryan's form with that of Lukas Dryml.

If you ignore the riders who qualified from outside this years GP series, only 1 of the announced riders in the field didn't make it to a final this year, and that was Scott Nicholls....so maybe his place should have gone to Rune or Pepe who both made finals this year! Good to see that the replacements for injured riders may come from this years GP riders that didn't make it, so there is still a good chance to see Pepe, Rune and Lukas in a few GPs next year.

Billy has also got a few FIM Individual medals in his pocket, unlike Leigh.

Does anyone know for sure whether Ole actually had anything to do with the track preparation for Bydgoszcz this year? I have seen several people both here and on the YahooGroups list blaming him for the lack of passing there this year, but I would be very surprised if he actually had much to do with the track preparation. It seems more likely that the track at Bydgoszcz was produced to a standard that the top Polish rider(s) wanted it.

Yet how many ex-World Under 21 champions ahve won the "ultimate" prize? Answer, just one, Mr Crump Strictly speaking, yes. However, exactly the same competition was held from 1977-87 but was called the European Junior Championship. A rather odd title as it was open to U-21 riders from all nations not just European ones. Both Per Jonsson and Gary Havelock won that title. Of course, Jason won that title in 1995, so the 1996 winner must have a great shot at next years full World Title.

The stadium was apparently at capacity for the Bydgoszcz GP. As for the Wroclaw GP, like Rico, I find it very hard to believe that there were only 8,000 there for that meeting. I've just had a flick back through my photos from the night and the crowd looks pretty good to me! Where did that figure come from?

I agree that the next 5 in the standings seem to be the best riders to include. It's just a shame that BSI decided to still run qualifiers this year as I think that numbers 14 and 15 in the current standings would be better than the two that made it through.

That system outlined above does sound like a decent compromise, although not quite what JP said last night as every point scored doesn't count if you make the final. Maybe I'm just grumpy because they've finally brought back a system where you are guaranteed to see every rider 5 times and we'll have to suffer the dismal Chrzanowski rather than seeing the wonderful Pepe.

Well, if you are going to try and claim Jason as British then I guess you would have to.

Obviously JP didn't go into exact details but I can envisage some problems with how they determine the GP "winner" at each round. Either the winner of the round will be the rider that wins the final or the rider with the highest number of points at the end of the night. If the round winner is simply the rider that wins the final then it would presumably be possible for a "losing" rider to leave with more points than the winner which makes no sense. If the round winner is the rider that scores the most points in the meeting then presumably it will be possible to win the round without winning the final therefor removing the climax that we currently get in a GP. Neither situation seems ideal to me.

Fairly irrelevant to the discussion, but the lower house of the Swiss parliament actually voted last month to remove the law that bans motorsport in that country. (the ban was introduced after spectators were killed when a car went into the crowd in 1955 Le Mans race) I'm not actually sure whether speedway is covered by this ban as Supercross, another stadium based motorcycle sport, does take place in the Country.

Yeah, I'll add my congratulations to a deserved World Champion. Who can blame him for his tumble during the celebrations? He must have thought he was never going to wrap it up when the red lights came on again. Have to say that it does make me laugh that quite a few people have mentioned that we now have a British born World Champ again....I guess it has been 12 long years for us

Eh???? Did you never see a one off World final where the track was slick and produced vitually no racing? If you didn't then I guess you missed quite a few of them! The beauty of the GP series is that it helps to ensure that the best man does win. Even though one meeting doesn't provide the best track, there were still 8 others to help decide the title.

Haven't actually added any comments as I was waiting for Rico to post his promised outline of the trip, which he has now done. Thought I would add that it was a fantastic weekend, as can always be expected of the Bydgoszcz GP. The racing wasn't the best but the atmosphere in the stadium was superb. If you haven't been, get yourself over there ASAP. I echo Pete's thanks to Mateusz for his assisntance during the weekend. Met up with a fair few folks from the forum and had a great laugh on both Friday and Saturday night. Top marks to Rico, Splatty and TheStartTart who managed to last until closing time each night. I can only apologise to them for the irrelevant drivel that I was no doubt talking by that stage each evening....not to mention my closing comment to f-s-p on Saturday, which I hope he doesn't remember! Unlike Rico, I give no thanks to B52 for having a camera on Saturday night, having seen the horrendous results which I pray will never reach a wider audience, although I suspect they will. The photo taken while we sang the McKinna song was particularly bad! Splatty, how are there no photos of you looking totally smashed?

I'll be delighted to see Crumpy win the title, but I'm confused as to where this oft stated "fact" comes from. Over the last 3 seasons Tony has achieved a higher average in the UK twice, a higher average in Sweden twice and a higher average in Poland every year. In the GP series Jason finished 2nd last year to Tony's third, whilst the year before he finished 2nd to Tony's first. Looks like Jason might finish ahead again this year. By my calculations they have the same number of GP wins over this period. Jason has more seconds and Tony far more thirds (thanks mainly to this season). Obviously when playing with statistics, you can make them say what you want, but I certainly don't think these figures suggest Jason has been the best over the 3 years.

Do you know for a fact that they didn't consider other nationalities for the wildcard slots in the European and Scandinavian GPs? They may have considered them and decided that the best options just happened to be from the home nation. In the past Lee Richardsson was given a WC in the Euro GP in Poland and Bjarne Pedersen a WC in the Scandinavian GP in Sweden. I definitely think that BSI should be stepping in and rejecting Forland as a pick for Norway though.

Top 7 that I have seen : 1. Erik Gundersen 2. Bruce Penhall 3. Tomasz Gollob 4. Tony Rickardsson 5. Dennis Sigalos 6. Jan O Pedersen 7. Shawn Moran

I have only just noticed this thread and thought I would add a few comments. Why do we think that we need Promotion and Relegation? If you look to the American sports scene you will see that (as far as I am aware) the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB don't have any form of promotion and relegation. There are plenty other teams playing Football, Basketball, Hockey and Baseball in the USA but they don't have promotion and relegation, and that works just fine. So why do we need it in speedway to be taken seriously. Would anyone suggest that those US leagues aren't taken seriously? As an aside, an earlier post suggested that Edinburgh wouldn't be able to attract top riders to race weekly in Scotland. Although the club has had problems in the past, they probably shouldn't be as big these days. We would just need to hire a Dane, Swede, Pole, etc, etc that wanted to stay at home and fly into the country for his British meetings. I think we already do that with our number one in the PL!

Piotr Protasiewicz. It's about time he showed his true class in a GP! OK, maybe I'm just dreaming on that one. I'll be happy with him getting to the final and then making a mess of that as he usually does when he makes it all the way. A final appearance in Slovenia and Bydgoszcz for him should give him a great shout at one of the wild card entries for next year, especially with his family's connections with Pentel.

It's just not workable with the differences between the two leagues. A good CL team might be able to give a bad PL team a battle on their home patch, and similarly a good PL team against a bad EL team, but what is in it for the team from the higher league? They are going to tracks where the crowds and admission prices are both lower than they get at home, and yet receiving only half of the gate receipts. I'm not sure how you work out that this could be a "nice little earner". When I first heard about it, I thought the idea for the BLC last year was a good one. Then the rulings over team strengths started coming out and it became obvious that it would just be a farce. If it had been organised properly, this could have been a genuinely interesting extra competition in the calendar, but as usual, that chance was blown.

I've probably got this wrong, but I think this is a complete list of riders that have taken wildcard entries in Countries that are not their home Nation since the GP series moved to 24 riders. As you can see there are no Australians or Americans in this list. The last time a rider from one of these Nations took a wildcard was, I think, in Sweden in 1997 when Jason Crump raced. Robert Barth in Czech republic 2004. Jonas Kylmakorpi in Norway 2003. Lee Richardson in Poland 2002. (although a European in the Euro GP) Sandor Tihanyi in Slovenia 2002. Bjarne Pedersen in Sweden 2002 (although a Scandinavian in the Scandic GP) Kaj Laukkanen in Norway 2002. Rune Holta in Sweden 2000. Mark Loram in Denmark 1999. Mark Loram in Sweden 1999. Piotr Protasiewicz in Czech republic 1999. Lars Gunnestad in Sweden 1998. Lars Gunnestad in Denmark 1998. Antonin Svab in Denmark 1998. Antonin Kasper in Germany 1998. Gerd Riss in Czech Republic 1998.

There are a few of us from Edinburgh staying in the Pod Orlem. Have stayed there a couple of times and, in my view, it's a really nice hotel. I'm sure that the top brass of the GP have normally chosen this hotel to stay in as well. You will have to travel to the rail station from the airport as they are not in the same place. I have only ever used taxis from the airport so can't advise on any other methods, although the taxis are plentiful and cheap (As long as you get an official taxi)