arnieg

I'm at Prague airport on my way back from the meeting Vaculik (a Slovakian, not a Czech!) won. He was last in the final (a four rider sudden death job) when Lukas mis-timed his dive under race leader Franc, having already passed Rymel. In the rerun the ref held tapes for a long time and Vaculik got a flyer. The four finalists were clear from early on. Simota missed out because of a 2 minute exclusion and Ales Dryml suffered an engine failure (one of many in the meeting). Sitera looked worth keeping an eye on, Tomicek had a miserable day including two EFs and the one time he was leading the race was stopped. Excellent racing, but the stadium makes Stoke and Smallmead look smart! Yet it had the best toilets I've seen at a speedway track!

I thought the senior meeting was better than the under 21 last year. Apart from Jonasson (who I'd not heard of, but was very impressed by) it seemed fairly predictable. Hope Jonasson does well again this year. If Forsberg rides even half as well as he did at Belle Vue on Wednesday then he will be hard to beat.

I've heard about it; I think that it is going to be in November. I'll post more details when I have them

He's still riding in the Czech Extra League for Plzen. Scored 10 points earlier this month. see http://www.przegladzuzlowy.pl/news_lc.php?id=1089892428

Age 20, made his debut for Gorzow in 2003 Finished 9th in World Junior Champs Polish National Qualifyer Averaged 5.33 in Polish League One (for comparison Rajkowski averaged 5.12 and Swist 5.60

At the Eastbourne staging of the British under 21 Championship it was stated that the top three scoring eligible riders would get places in the Euro under 19 championship. Glanz participated in that meeting. Perhaps the riders under 19 who finished above him did not wish to accept the nomination. If so he is there on merit as the British nomination. And good luck to him.

(from http://www.speedwaybikes.co.nz/forum/) 1st Andrew Bargh 2nd Jason Bunyan 3rd Jade Mudgeway 4th Karl Bagshaw 5th Mitchell McHardy 6th Ben Antunovich 7th= David Bargh, Dylan Moohan 9th Darrin Wilson 10th Jason Mckay 11th Kim Stevens (Res) 12th Daniel Hanley Jamie Moohan retired hurt after fall in first race.

Reading Speedway Memorabilia Wanted 20-02-2007 READING Speedway historians are urging supporters to search through their attics for any old Reading Speedway memorabilia they may have. In celebration of the Club’s proud history we have teamed up with the Museum of Reading, who have given us the opportunity to have a display there from 30th July – 5th November. The planned exhibition of Reading Speedway memorabilia will take the form of: Speedway Past, Speedway Present and Speedway Future. Also part of the celebration of the Club’s history will see the staging of a Speedway Fun Day at the Museum on a Saturday in September. We will issue more details about this in due course. So we are now on the lookout for Reading Speedway memorabilia to fill the display. If you have, or know of anyone who may have items that you think would be suitable and of interest, you are urged to contact the Bulldogs Press Officer Andy Povey personally, or by email on andyp@readingbulldogs.com Any persons lending items to the museum for the purpose of this exhibition will be given a receipt and your items will then be returned to you in the condition they were received after the exhibition’s finish on 5th November 2007. The type of things we are looking for are: newspaper cuttings, old race jackets, race suits, programmes, racing equipment (goggles, boots, parts of a bike etc), metal badges, pennants, photographs, or just about any Reading Speedway related memorabilia you think would be suitable. We would be particularly interested in anything from the old Tilehurst Stadium era (1968-1973) – Maybe someone has the old Tilehurst Stadium starting tapes or a copy of the first-ever meeting programme tucked away in their attic!! Sounds interesting - just hope they get a photo of Dickie May winning the Golden Helmet

He wa sone of those riders who looks very promising, but decided to give up. I think he was only 16/17 too. He made his debut for Stoke in 1987 riding all season for a 4 point average. Second season he failed to build on the promise of the first and retired mid-season, still with an average of around 4. Don't know why, but Peter Oakes History of Speedway does list one appearance for Newcastle.

Born 4 Feb 1985 - so clearly not eligible As I understand it the AMA have not yet announced their seeds. As the QR takes place during the Dream Team tour I assume that the two riders will be from the Dream Team Tourists. As this includes runner-up Dale Facchini he must be a near cert. As for the other place I guess others are better qualified to speculate on who gets it.

Try http://www.speedway.org/history/85.htm#1985

fifth out of six Record: home 3 0 2 away 0 0 5 bonus 1 out of 5

All you need to do is register - then you can edit. I amended a reference to Ove Fundin's 1976 World championship win!

TRACK (can be defunct): Grippy,Leicester WEATHER: Warm Spring evening CAPTAIN: not material RIDERS WHO HAD TO BE IN THE TEAM (assume they are at their peak): John Cook, Toni Kasper, Pierre Brannefors, Shawn Moran, Neil Collins, Anders Michanek, Gerald Short PROMOTER: John Berry TEAM MANAGER: ditto ANNOUNCER: not material RACE NIGHT: Tuesday MARCH OUT MUSIC: Bat out of Hell REFEREE: Frank Ebdon Above all I want a last heat decider with the team taking a 5-1 to turn the match around, after lots of overtaking, a few surprise performances and a touch of controversy and no injuries. Think Leicester v Cov in 1983 Neil Collins and Ole Olsen

You can find “delgado's” World speedway Rankings for the year @ http://speedwayranking.125mb.com/2006.htm They are extremely thorough (a real labour of love), and while not perfect they are pretty good Here are the top 20 (second figure is 2005 ranking): 1 2 Jason Crump 2 3 Nicki Pedersen 3 10 Hans N. Andersen 4 1 Tony Rickardsson 5 9 Andreas Jonsson 6 14 Greg Hancock 7 5 Leigh Adams 8 7 Scott Nicholls 9 24 Wiesław Jaguś 10 11 Jarosław Hampel 11 8 Tomasz Gollob 12 6 Rune Holta 13 4 Bjarne Pedersen 14 12 Peter Karlsson 15 21 Chris Louis 16 22 Ryan Sullivan 17 15 Mark Loram 18 17 Sebastian Ułamek 19 61 Matej Žagar 20 19 Keneth Bjerre a few observations: Gollob is no longer Polish number one, he drops to three behind Jagus and Hampel Top under 21 riders (i.e those eligible for 2006 World Champs) 1 Lindback, 2 Lindgren, 3 Zabik, 4 Miedzinski, 5 Hlib, 6 Kennett 7 Batchelor, 8 Heffenbrock, 9 Buczkowski, 10 Wright, 11 Simota, 12 King Highest new entry is Todd Wiltshire @ no 30 coming out of retirement Excluding veterans coming out of retirement (sometimes just for the odd meeting – does Brian Karger really merit a ranking on the basis of one meeting @ Auburn?) the highest new entries were John Oliver @ 320, Adam Kajoch (Pol) @420, Tai Woffinden @ 423 and another Pole - Jakub Śpiewanek @ 424 Big climbers include: Matej Zagar up from 61 to 19 Rory Schlein from 81 to 24 Karol Zabik from 133 to 43 Ollie Allen from 141 to 67 Richard Hall from 239 to 84 Lukasz Jankowski - 204 to 102 Steve Boxall – 327 to 123 Chris Holder – 414 to 126 Nilolai Klindt – 451 to 143 Kyle Legault – 344 to 152 Lewis Bridger – 477 to 156 Thomas H Jonasson – 733 to 163 Emil Saifutdinov – 292 to 177 Chris Mills - 394 to 190 Derek Sneddon - 582 to 298 Chris Kerr - 643 to 309 (Jurica Pavlic's progress was modest – from 275 to 216) Highest riders no longer ranked were Carl Stonehewer (87 in 2005), Peter Nahlin (107), Toni Svab (142) and Lars Gunnestad (153) – all retired New Zealand's highest entry is Andrew Bargh @ 647 – how times have changed Armando Castagna is still Italy's number one moving up 2 places to 194 (well ahead of Maida and Carpenese @ 360/363 Bottom of the rankings is Dutchman Sjoerd Rozenberg @ 697. (Lowest ranked Brit is John Branney @ 689) At the age of 49 Andrzej Huszcza is still ranked a respectable 141 (50 year old Bobby Schwartz is 508)

I find he best coverage from Argentina is at: http://www.deportesmecanicos.com.ar/notici...hp?categoria=sw

The London Cup was staged at West Ham on whit monday 13 May 1940 and won by Bill Longley with a maximum (from Eric Chitty, George Pepper and George Wilks). The West Ham meeting was a 7pm start, the Crystal Palace meeting started at 6pm. So who were the riders at Crystal Palace?. Intrigingly the programme contains an advert for the following week's meeting - a LEAGUE match against Belle Vue. (The programme editorial promises future league matches against Glasgow and Harringay) As Speedyguy says, all very intriguing - and a thoroughly enjoyable thread.

The 25 March meeting was won by Arthur Atkinson in a sudden death final from Colin Watson and Keith Harvey. Top scorers in the qualifying heats (from 3 rides): Harvey 9, Phil Bishop 7, Watson 7, Atkinson 6, Wally Lloyd 6. Keith Harvey recorded the fastest time 79.8 in heat 2. Tiger Stevenson and Archie Windmill were among the other competitors. Back page of the programme contains the following: "Air Raid Precautions In the event of an air raid warning, all visitors living within 5 minutes walk are advised to go home. Air raid shelters are situated:- 1. Under the centre steps...." and so on.

I see STMK have a retained list of 28 riders! Povashny moves to SK Turbina Emil Saifutdinov listed for Mega-Lada - but will he ride? The league has fallen from 8 to 7 teams - What happened to Metkor? When will we know about foreign signings?

From 19 May 1948 New Cross programme (an individual meeting celebrating 21 years of speedway): "Our first intimation that there was a sport called "dirt track" racing came from some articles written by a lionel Wills, from Australia. at first we were not very much interested, but a little later Wills returned to the country and was introduced to us. He informed us that an australian syndicate was coming to this country to inaugurate the sport, and so he fired us with his own enthusiasm that we decided to have a go ourselves, and we entered into a suitable arrangement with Sir Henry Buckland, of the Crystal Palace, for the laying of a track on the old football cup final ground. This is the start of a 5 page article on the first 21 years of speedway, with a bias towards Crystal Palace/New Cross. The article is unsigned but I assume it is from Mockford and Smith (both are mentioned in the article individually, but they are never referred to together)

Probably Buck Blair

Line-ups (as posted on speedwaybikes yahoo discussion forum) RIDER HOMETOWN AGE AMA/USA Speedway U.S. Under 21 National Championship 3 - T.J. Fowler Palermo, CA 18 12 - Greg Hooten, Jr. Sacramento, CA 20 19 - Dale Facchini Riverside, CA 18 25 - J.J. Martynse Penryn, CA 21 30 - Tim Gomez Hesperia, CA 18 45 - Dario Galvin Corona, CA 18 87 - Aaron Laird Brighton, CO 19 93 - J.T. Mabry Napa, CA 18 97 - Casey Donholt Port Crane, NY 19 116 - Alex Marcucci Nevada City, CA 18 155 - Scott York Ojai, CA 20 171 - Brian Hollenbeck Owego, NY 21 201 - Neil Facchini Riverside, CA 21 212 - Kenny Ingalls Foresthill, CA 19 238 - Travis Henderson Ojai, CA 18 241 - John Marquez Menifee, CA 20 248 - Brian Starr Garden Grove, CA 19 California Youth Championship - First Division 8 - Austin Novratil Huntington Beach, CA 11 9n - Bryce Starks Meadow Vista, CA 15 13 - Krystal Cramer Chino, CA 16 21 - Gino Manzares Corona, CA 13 24 - Ben Essary Yuba City, CA 15 32 - Steven Reese Yuba City, CA 16 66 - Jason Ramirez Orange, CA 14 70 - Cody Ciciarelli Auburn, CA 13 114 - Joey Holt Oak Hills, CA 12 California Youth Championship - Second Division 2 - Braydan Galvin Corona, CA 8 9 - Rocco Scopellite Huntington Beach, CA 10 12 - Thomas Reich Auburn, CA 13 18 - Russell Green Anaheim, CA 15 22 - Samuel Ramirez Orange, CA 7 139 - Phillip Harmatiuk Garden Grove, CA 16 154 - Chad Hoyt Tustin, CA 13 178 - Eloy Medellin III Yorba Linda, CA 12 611 - Brad Pappalardo Corona, CA 13 California Pee Wee Championship 3 - Bryson Galvin Corona, CA 5 43 - River McDougall Bakersfield, CA 8 104 - Kurtis Hamill Carlsbad, CA 8 178 - Cassandra Medellin Yorba Linda, CA 8

30 September - double header with Bradford (according to the Crewe programme I have in front of me (although that is no guarantee that it was not rained-off then too!))

Your best bet for info is: http://www.speedwaybikes.co.nz/forum/

And aren't the Stead's part of the family too