arnieg

From 'Tears and Glory' 1976 chapter: Bernie Leigh also upped his average by over a point, overtaking Bengt Jansson for the third heat leader spot. His best score of the season came when guesting for Hackney at Hull – 15+1. Sadly he got a duck when he returned to Hull in Racers colours. He did score 12+3 for Racers at Newport – from eight rides. Speedway is littered with bizarre rules, and 1976's rider replacement rule comes into that category. When operating rider replacement the rider immediately above in the averages could take one ride, and any rider with an average below the others. This meant Leigh could have three of Jansson's rider replacement rides, as well as a tactical substitution. He rode in heats: 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 12.

I'm a bit confused after looking at the final standings here: http://www.knmv.nl/uploads/archive/2012/KNMV_Speedway_ONK_Totaalstand_2012-10-07.pdf The official results show Robert-jan Bangma competing in the first round and scoring 39 points - these seem to have disappeared and all riders in the B group promoted one place Secondly why are Erwin Werkman's 34 (or should that be 33?) points excluded - shouldn't that only happen to riders competing in all three rounds?

rider to watch - must be Adam Ellis

Abolition of Entertainment tax in the 1957 budget made the economics of running speedway more favourable. Prospective promoters (eg Reg Duval at Liverpool in 1958) found that the established promoters (who had kept the sport going through the lean years) were reluctant to allow new promoters to join organised speedway and benefit from the abolition of entertainment tax. This resulted in pirate meetings at Liverpool, Bradford and Cradley in 1959. The first two were promoted by Mike Parker a Manchester based midget car driver. All three tracks had mixed programmes of bikes and midgets. MP was the driving force behind the formation of the PL. He got together a group of prospective promoters from various sources the northern pirate tracks the amateur tracks involved in the 1959 Southern Area League (in the end only Yarmouth competed in the first PL) tracks that had failed to survive financially in the NL (Rayleigh and Poole) revival of long closed tracks (eg Ian Hoskins at Edinburgh, Charlie Knott at Bristol) Having demonstrated that he wasn't someone to be messed with, Parker opened negotiations with the Speedway Control Board with a view to running the new league under the control of the SCB. Although not without the odd hitch the PL plan came to fruition. There are some interesting articles on www.speedwayplus.com about this episode in spedway's history.

I too was on the site yesterday morning, looking at the ice speedway results from 2012. They too now appear to be hiding. Can you link me to them?

Is there a Kaupunki Cup result missing? All the sites with info on the Kaup Cup, including this thread, seem to have details of 7 meetings, but the final league table implies that there were 8 meetings. The fixture list at the start of the thread suggests that there should have been a meeting in mid August?

All the PL trophies went to different teams - a very unusual event with so many trophies on offer League - Scunthorpe Cup - Newcastle League Cup - Somerset Fours - Berwick Pairs - Workington Individual - Craig Cook of Edinburgh

Not strictly 2013 I know but I was looking at past results from Sweden and I couldn't find 2011 results current results are on: http://www.svemo.se/sv/Grenar/Speedway/ and it links to http://speedwayhistorik.svemo.se/ for archives covering 2002-2010. Are the 2011 results hidden somewhere on the SVEMO site? (Note not all the info particularly the 80cc results are on aktuellspeedway)

hope your son is OK based on last night's performance the Diamonds should be OK. The only department in which Ipswich excelled last night was in getting a meeting on in attrocious conditions.

Er no. .... wouldn't Ales Dryml, Leon Madsen, Troy Batchelor and the winner of a run-off between Andersen, Ljung, Vaculik and Buczkowski be there. (I know in practice that with no wild cards the GP challenge field might look a bit different - but the point remains a valid one.

Worse still it allows the following scenario: Rye beat Sheff by ten, while Ippo take advantage of neutral venue and win by 13. Result: Rye House pissed off and Ippo have another final that they have no dates for!

Agreed to both comments - a meeting with very little overtaking - yet still quite enjoyable. Crowd less than 150 (including Chris Holder) - I hope people weren't staying away for the football! And the good news for Isle of Wight is that they announced Ellis in their 2013 team.

Just goes to show that video technology isn't the answer to everything. Look at the level of disagreement on this thread. Ultimately it was a judgement call. In a domestic meeting I would have expected all4back, but in the GP where 1st bend incidents are more likely to lead to exclusions I was expecting Holder to go. I dislike Nikki Pedersen, but on this occasion he can consider himself unlucky. However the point of a GP is that the good and bad decisions tend to cancel each other out over the course of the series... and NP certainly had a few generous calls in earlier rounds. PS Congrats to Holder on becoming world champion

Smith's who have ridden for Reading: Graeme 1972 Troy late 80s Scott 2003 Andy 2006-7 Doesn't ring any bells with me

Have a look at the first ever GP in 1995 - only three riders over 30: Nielsen (35), Ermolenko (34) and Knudsen (33) Josh Larsen youngest at 23. 75% of field between 24 and 30 Average - just over 27

I don't know whether to be relieved that the name of Jack Young is no longer associated with such a half-hearted end of season competition OR disappointed that the memory of Jack Young has been so casually disregarded in the re-vamping of what was the Young Shield

Try looking at: http://www.speedwayfiction.co.uk/ The central character of the books, Joe Barnes, is a Wimbledon rider and they are set in 1975 and 1976. There are some quite evocative paragraphs that certainly chimed with my memories of that era.

OK maybe they could have done it a little better (I like the idea of a brief tribute film played on the large screens) but this thread is over dramatic. There were three full pages devoted to Lee in the programme (plus a full page advert)

Norweigan, signed for Racers in 1979 'On May 7 Siggy Pedersen broke a leg in the second half at Exeter. He did not reappear until the start of 1980, when after three early season challenge appearances for Reading he drifted on to Eastbourne and then Wimbledon. Pedersen's 1979 Racers form was ambiguous, just a point from six away matches, but a healthy 6.09 average from his seven home fixtures. (Most of these were Spring Gold Cup appearances.)' from Tears & Glory

I don't vouch for these being 100% accurate, but I think these should be pretty much there: Club Dragons 51 (Ross Walter 22+1, S Pearce 12+1, Willy Kennis 11+1) Sittingbourne 60 (S Hazelden 18(max), Jack Kingston 15+2, Mark Bibby 14+1) Interesting name in the Dragons team:- Aaron Mogridge. A chip off the old block, he fell in five of his six races, most while well placed. Ross Walter had 8 rides including a TR so could have scored 27! Kingston lost his maximum when defeated by Walter in the last race Intermed Dragons 47 (Mike Osborne 15, Gordon Walker 11) Frittenden 67 (Ben Harrison 19+1, G Knowler 17+1(max), James Peters 15+1, Stefan Kalisz 9+1) James Peters impressed me, his win from the back over Gordon Walker was easily the best race of the day. Support Dragons 45 (Shaun Crawley 13+1) Sittingbourne 66 (Charles Wallace 18, Tony Raybould 14) Wallace was heading for a 21-point maximum until he fell while leading the last heat

Sixth in 1972 Swedish Under21 Final. Principally rode for Vargarna, for whom he averaged over 8 (5 ride CMA ~ 6.4 for 4 ride CMA) in three consecutive seasons (73-75)

Philip Dalling's History of Nottingham and Long Eaton speedway contains several mentions and a couple of photos of George see http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nottingham-Long-Eaton-Speedway-Philip-Dalling-2007-/150620185980?pt=Non_Fiction&hash=item2311a9a57c

On that basis I suggest that Team GB should be: Hancock Holder Crump Ward :P

Apparently Jason Bunyan has withdrawn as he feels it inappropriate for him to ride given that he has so firmly nailed his colours to the New Zealand mast, and that he should stand aside to give a young Brit (presumably Worrall or Newman) a chance