arnieg

My thoughts starting in 71 because that's where I can start adding personal recollection to interpretation of statistics. 71 - agreed - Mauger 72 - agreed Olsen 73 - Michanek - his form was stunning that season he won the following open meetings on British tracks (as well as topping the averages by a country mile): The Spring Classic (Wimbledon), Manpower (Reading), Pride of the East (King's Lynn), Blue Riband (Poole), Golden Gauntlets (Leicester), Brandonapolis (Coventry), Superama (Hackney), Champion of Champions (Wolverhampton), Prince of Wales Trophy (Newport), Autumn Classic (Halifax), Brew XI Trophy (Wolverhampton) 74 - Mauger agreed 75 - undecided I think it's a close call between Mauger and Collins, and I'm also taken by the Crump argument. As the GP appears to have benefited older riders I suspect that you may be right and Mauger's experience would have told in the end 76 - Collins agreed 77 - I think I'd go for Collins rather than Olsen, but it is a close call (and of course there is PC's broken leg) 78 - Olsen agreed 79 another tricky one - I think I'll go with Lee, but I'm tempted to put in a claim for Scott Autrey 80 - I just can't see Jessup winning. Lee is my choice again but Collins, Penhall and Nielsen wouldn't be far behind 81- Penhall of course 82 - although it pains me to say as I was firmly in the Penhall camp, my choice is Carter 83 - a really tough choice but I'm going for Sigalos (add his really impressive test scores v England to topping the averages) 84 - 90 Nielsen everytime but I am sure that Gundersen would have pipped him somewhere along the line. If everything went to form Gundo would have been second 5 years in a row (and would have been heading for 2nd in 89 ahead of Shawn Moran or Kelvin Tatum). I think Moran would have been 2nd in 1990 (assuming he wasn't stripped of his position through over-indulgence in cough medicine) Note that in 84 Nielsen was way ahead of Gudersen in the British averages, but that was due to the new tape touching rule - which didn't apply at FIM level. 91 Nielsen again with Jonsson second (Jonsson was second to Nielsen in Polish averages and topped Swedish averages with Nielsen second) 92 Jonsson agreed 93 Ermolenko not Nielsen In my view. He was just superb that year. As well as topping British averages by some distance he also topped Polish averages with Nielsen 2nd. 94 agree with Nielsen, but Jonsson might have been leading before his accident (Per topped Polish and British averages that season)

Don't forget the Soccer World Cup reaches its climax on Sunday July 11 - so the FIM schedule may look different from other years (eg Cardiff GP will be later than normal)

Slow down! I go away for a few days and your on to 1977! Re Lawson and 1951: Ultimately it may only be an argument for Lawson being second to Young, but I feel I should make it as there is a case to be made: Lawson topped both the league point scorers and averages for Division One (where of course we have no record for Young): Top Points: Lawson 324, Hunt 299, N Parker 289, M Craven 287, R Moore 286, Rigg 285 Averages: Lawson 10.32, Moore 10.08, Hunt 9.62, F Williams 9.52, N Parker 9.40, Rigg 9.40 Results in the Final Qualifying Round of the World Championships: Lawson 25, Young 23 (Top qualifyers: Biggs 29, Waterman 27, Hunt 26, Moore 25) Open Meetings on League One tracks: Lawson won open meetings at Belle Vue, Harringay, New Cross, West Ham and Wimbledon. Nobody else won more than two (excluding World Champ QRs). Young won the Tom Farndon memorial (Lawson was second) The World Final preview edition of Speedway News carried the following predictions: Morgan: Waterman, Lawson, Biggs Went: Lawson, Biggs, Young Against that the case for Young is that he won the World Final, topped the Stenners World rankings (1 Young, 2 Waterman, Lawson, Moore), and out scored Lawson in the test series (see below) and dominated Division 2 - although Tommy Miller did take the D2 match race championship off him in August) England v Australia Test Series - Leading Scorers (inc bonus): Young 70, Lawson 62, Biggs 54, Moore 43 (all 5 matches), (you can see why Australia won - top Englisman was Split Waterman with 42 from 4 tests.

Put me down for Lawson in 51, and the Star Rankings are summarised here (on the Bob Andrews site): http://www.geocities.com/robnade2001/WorldRatings.html

I'm fairly sure that the 1968 event was always billed as a trial meeting, but the 1969 one was certainly regarded as official at the time and for many years after. When and why the FIM retrospectively changed the status of the 1969 event remains a mystery to me

I think Bluey Wilkinson was the best rider* in 1936, BUT the view that most of the participants in this debate have taken is that by topping the bonus point scorers going into the World Final Eric Langton has made his case. And Wilkinson was only 6th in the list of bonus point scorers going into the final. * edit: actually looking at the 1936 averages I think that a stronger case can be made for Frank Charles

I think Parker gets it for 49 Top averages (Jackson & Vass) were: 1 Duggan 10.65 2 Warren 10.23 3 J Parker 10.13 4 Lammy 9.65 5 Lawson 9.57 Top pointscorers (Morrish): 1 J Parker 393 2 Warren 376 3 Lawson 374 4 Oliver 363 5 Gilbert 357 6 Price 348 Duggan missed 11 matches due to injury in July which would have lost him a couiple of GP rounds leaving Parker's experience to edge out youthful Warren. I'm, comfortable with the consensus that is emerging around: 1936 Eric Langton 1937 Jack Milne 1938 Bluey Wilkinson 1939 Cordy Milne 1946 Jack Parker 1947 Vic Duggan 1948 Vic Duggan 1949 Jack Parker 1950 Graham Warren - let the debate continue

According to Polish wikipedia he is an American speedway rider, who rode briefly in the UK (with Poole I think). Rings no bells with me though http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brode_Mail

There were a few good races, more than one would expect given the conditions, and a fresher looking final line-up. At least one of Crump, Hancock, Gollob, Nicki Pedersen and Rickardsson has appeared in all but 2 of the GP finals since the start of 2001 (up to last night). The exceptions were: 2006 Prague: Andersen, Zagar, Lindback, Hampel 2002 Cardiff: Sullivan, Wiltshire,M Karlsson, Adams PS Note to Nigel Pearson - likening speedway riders competing for points to the M25 in the rush hour seems to miss the mark. If speedway riders travelled as fast as M25 rush hour traffic we'd be looking at a track record time of 7 minutes! (and that's the M25 on a good day )

I think Michanek would have won it in 73 (instead of 74) under a GP system, and Ermolenko was so good in 93 that he would have won it that year under a GP format too. (Similarly while I don't think Jonsson would have won under a GP format in 1990, he could have done so in 1992) Ultimately whatever the system there will only be one world champion per year. What a GP system does is to share those titles among a smaller number of riders. And back to the original question: Vic Duggan, Jack Parker, Igor Plechanov, Zenon Plech, and any Moran of your choice would be the top of my list.

Trinon Cirello - he was 1984 USA Youth Champion (I think that is under 16). I did find his name in a 2005 Industry result but it looks like he drifted out of the sport many years before. It's an unusual name so I suspect the drag racing/motocross entries I found by asking Mr. Google are the same guy. But I found this interseting article: http://articles.latimes.com/1988-07-09/new...35_1_full-speed Now what happened to Greg Hancock? But my favourite line is: The three are Orange County teen-agers competing in a sport in which the average age is 22 1/2. I wonder what the average at Costa Mesa is now?

Provisional line-up for Industry's 'Legends Night' (Sept 9) below, and an interesting article at: http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/sports/ci_13202939 Gene the Dancin Machine Howie "Hardhat" Zechner Warren Russell Andrea Phillips Chris Agajanian Bruce Penhall Rick Woods Bobby Schwartz Dennis Sigalos Rick Miller Mike Faria Shawn McConnell Gene Woods Josh Larsen Brad Oxley Bill Cody Kelly Moran Scott Sivadge Billy Gray Jim Fishback Don Odom Chris Manchester Jan Ballard Ron Preston Billy Meister Danny McNeil Gary Ackroyd Danny Becker Steve Russell George Fox Pat Hawley Kelly Inman Jesse Finch Andy Northrup Dean Foreman (from Speedwaybikes2 yahoo discussion group)

looks like we will . . . . riding for Newport :shock:

Unlike the European Senior Ice Championship, held at the same time as the World Team Championship with the result that there were (I think) only two non-Russians competing

Held in Togliatti today to almost universal indifference west of Poland. Still it is marginally more interesting than the European Best Pairs and the European Junior Ice Championship Result from Sportowefakty.pl 1. Renat Gafurov (Rosja) (1,3,3,3,3) 13+3 2. Andriej Karpov (Ukraina) (3,3,3,2,2) 13+2 3. Ales Dryml (Czechy) (2,3,2,3,3) 13+1 4. Ronnie Jamroży (Polska) (3,2,3,3,1) 12 5. Josef Franc (Czechy) (2,2,3,2,2) 11 6. Denis Gizatullin (Rosja) (3,1,1,1,3) 9 7. Matej Kus (Czechy) (1,0,2,2,3) 8 8. Siemen Własow (Rosja) (2,1,0,3,2) 8 9. Danił Iwanow (Rosja) (0,3,1,2,w) 6 10. Siergiej Darkin (Rosja) (3,2,w,d,1) 6 11. Jewgienij Karawackis (Łotwa) (2,0,0,0,2) 4 12. Maks Gregoric (Słowenia) (0,1,2,1,w) 4 13. Mads Korneliussen (Dania) (d,2,0,1,1) 4 14. Jozsef Tabaka (Węgry) (1,w,2,1,0) 4 15. Władimir Dubinin (Rosja) (0,1,1,0,1) 3 16. Martin Malek (Czechy) (1,0,1,0,0) 2

I'd ask about his early days at California. How did he find the unusual sand surface and the unusual setting?

Before anyone gets too confused that translates into English as 11-10-09

I rather like the sound of the Hard brothers of Swedish Division One team Eldarna. And on a slightly different tack how about pairing American Brad Sauer with former Eastbourne rider Gary Sweet

I started by seeking advice from someone who knew his way round the publishing business (Jeff Scott) and occasionally ran queries past others with experience (such as Norbs). As a result I concentrated on using photos where I could obtain copyright permission, all of which are attributed in the book. The real bonus was obtaining access to the Reading Evening Post archive. If you haven't already I'd contact the Swindon Advertiser. It is probably worth soliciting old photos from Swindon fans. Ultimately I think it is sufficient to show that you made the effort to identify the copyright holder and seek permission, with a disclaimer along the lines suggested by speedyguy. Remember that ultimately if you do use a photo without permission you are depriving the copyright holder of income from the exploitation of that copyright. However the sums are involved must be trivial (I paid for a handful of the photos I used, maximum for a photo - £20) so worst case (as Norbs alludes to) is an apology and a token payment. On programme covers (and content) I approached both Reg Fearman and Pat Bliss, who had no objections. Although in both cases we weren't really sure who now owned the copyright on old Reading programmes it seems reasonable to assume that the copyright holder could not be traced. (It should be the promoting company for stuff done in house - but most of these have long been wound up; For stuff outsourced who is going to be able to track down a graphic designer from 40 years ago?) Scanning a page of text would almost always break the copyright rule about the amount of text you can quote, so permission is needed if for example you scan a full page article from a programme. The longest quote I used was about 100 words from a local history book (I got permission from the author's widow) and I also got a blanket permission from the Speedway Star because of the number of quotes I used and also for their stats.

I'm just wondering who holds the Daugavpils track record

He started well with a brilliant win from the back in his opening ride. But he had gate 4 in his third and fourth ride. [gate 4 produced no wins and just two 2nds in the first 15 races] In his later races he was competetive, racing hard but not finding a way thru, eventually tailing off on the last couple of laps. It was sufficiently tight that a win in his last heat would still have put him into the semi. As for THJ - rubbish - he ONLY won three races from the back (over Ludvig Lindgren, David Ruud and Henka Gustafsson). In the final PK passed him for third on the second lap, but he wouldn't be defeated and tigered (or shold that be Monarched) away until he repassed PK on the last lap.

Well he was very impressive tonight and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend him. [nb My 2006 recomendation from visiting Sweden was THJ, and last year's was Linus Sundstrom] He went from 3rd to 1st in his third ride, pressed THJ hard in his fourth, beat Eklof from the back in heat 17 and rode wheel to wheel with THJ in the first two laps of the final. Forsberg and Lindgren (even with home track advantage) were very disappointing. Strong bias towards inside gates. Only Simon Gustafsson won from gate 4. Decision to exclude him in final was a reasonable call(he steamed under Sundstrom on the second lap causing Linus to hit the air fence hard). I estimated crowd at 1200 - 1156 not bad! PS I doubt if Linus Eklof is happy with 5th. He gated in heat 17 and had he held that would have been straight into the final - however Forsberg and Andersson went either side of him on the fourth bend and Sundstrom passed him on the final lap.

No contest it has to be the 1972 league match between the Budgies and the Racers - the first of many Racers away wins that I've witnessed). Anders Michanek came out and broke the tapes in heat 1 and was replaced by reserve Richard May. Not a good start, but then May beat Barry Briggs. By heat 8 Swindon needed to introduce a tac sub - Barry Briggs. And Richard May beat him from the back! Needless to say the Racers won :D

Looks like its going to be damp. http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/europe...locationID=3384 Hopefully just showers

I have them and can sort it out