Peter

An Irish rider took part in the amateur meeting at Scunthorpe recently. As for the original point of the thread... people can tinker with the format as much as they like. The fact is, there is a bit of a gap after Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Australia and Great Britain. At present, Russia, Czech Republic, USA, Germany and Finland aren't top 5 material.

Some that haven't been included so far.... Bill Andrew Steve Bastable Garry Middleton Bobby Ott Ron Preston Mark Courtney

You won't get team averages like that these days given how weak the product is. I've compared it with Belle Vue's team last year, and six of Newcastle's team had higher averages than the highest Belle Vue rider! Simon Stead 6.90 Joe Screen 6.62 Kevin Doolan 5.57 Adam Skornicki 4.89 James Wright 4.85 Billy Forsgerg 4.41 Laukkanen 4.39 Antonio Lindback 4.15 Ryan Fisher 3.00

Why didn't they show the start of it on Sky Sports 3? It's only Sky Sports Classics until 6:15 and then that amazing 'sport' called kiteboarding! Hopefully, the first race won't start until 6:30.

Nicki Pedersen Leigh Adams Jason Crump Hans Andersen Tomasz Gollob Chris Harris Scott Nicholls Rune Holta Andreas Jonsson Wieslaw Jagus Jaroslaw Hampel Bjarne Pedersen Greg Hancock Peter Karlsson Ryan Sullivan Maybe one or two surprises there, but Ryan Sullivan is 5th in both the Swedish and Polish league averages, and although Freddie Lindgren has done okay when he's been a wildcard, they've been in his home country. If it was the 2009 series, I'd pick him though.

Riskit Riley was still alive last year. He rode in the late 20s, so he must be one of the oldest living riders, if not the oldest.

There's four tracks in Canada. Click here for details.

The address was Greyhound Stadium, York Road, Doncaster. Mike Parker and Bill Bridgett were the promoters in 1969, and Joe Thurley and John Berry in 1970. I've mislaid my History of the British League 1965-1990 book, so I can't give you the riders, but I'm sure someone else will be able to help.

My top 15 would be the same as GSC_1's, except I'd have Jagus instead of Loram.

It is. They have greyhound racing there now. The stadium was refurbished about four years ago, after Tony Mole's bid to bring speedway back was unsuccessful. The application was turned down after residents complained about the noise it would create. I was annoyed about this because the surrounding area hasn't changed and the council allowed speedway in the 70s and 80s so they should still allow it now.

I'd say it was impossible to call looking at the replay because Nicki was out of shot when they crossed the line.

Am I the only one who finds it sad when people keep or search for quotes from the past and put them all together to try and make someone look silly? I don't mind the banter, but collecting quotes in the hope they turn out to be wrong is a bit childish.

Two very poor decisions by the referee. Niels-Kristian Iversen got knocked off by Nicki Pedersen, but Niels got excluded and then Scott Nicholls ran into the side of Matej Zagar, but Matej got excluded. A word also about Mattia Carpanese. He may not have scored any points, but he was leading some quality riders at times!

I remember Southampton competing in a few challenge meetings around 2000/2001. Does anyone know what happened to them? I never heard anything. They just seemed to disappear.

Is it just me, or are some of the riders not yet capable of handling a 500cc speedway bike? I remember last year in these U15 meetings, there were loads of falls and exclusions. Many a time, races consisted of two or three riders. It seems like these children are being fast-tracked because the production line of British youngsters is drying up. Speedway is dangerous enough as it is. Trying to make these kids run before they can walk is asking for trouble. I'm all for bringing on young British riders, but only when they are ready. I read somewhere there is going to be a 250cc class soon. Hopefully, they will be able to handle these less powerful machines better.

That's more or less the squad I would have gone with. I'm surprised Dean Barker isn't in the squad though. Is there any reason why he hasn't been picked?

At Rybnik, I'd pick: Scott Nicholls Lee Richardson Simon Stead Mark Loram Chris Harris with Joe Screen being on stand-by. At Reading, I'd be inclined to pick Joe ahead of Chris, although it would depend on how Chris performed, whilst bearing in mind it's Chris' home track in Poland.

These are British League Division One meetings only. 1993 M - R - Pts - B - Tot - CMA 34 - 183 - 451 - 20 - 471 - 10.30 1994 M - R - Pts - B - Tot - CMA 11 - 59 - 145.5 - 6 - 151.5 - 10.27 I don't know his full and paid maximums though.

Peter Ravn is director/owner of Scandic CNC in Australia and developed the Scandic clutch which Tony Rickardsson uses. Their website is www.scandic-cnc.com.

Problems have been encountered in the past when junior races have been staged during the main meeting. I remember at Sheffield once, a junior crashed during the interval and a long delay ensued. In addition, some clubs just about manage to fit in 15 heats before the curfew, nevermind 20 or 21.

I'm surprised Sky choose to interview riders whose English is poor without an interpreter. It's common knowledge in speedway that Grzegorz Walasek hardly speaks the language, and even Sophie said before the interview that he was worried about his English. Someone who speaks both languages should have been next to him. I remember an Oxford v Belle Vue meeting on Sky when Tomasz Jedrzejak got excluded. Jane Omorogbe shoved a microphone in his face and he was really struggling with the language. I felt sorry for him, as I did with Grzegorz. It annoys me when people get jobs on TV just because of their looks. Sky seem to be one of the biggest culprits. There's a girl on Sky Sports News called Di Stewart and she can't put a sentence together without making a mistake. It's embarrassing watching her getting her words mixed up all the time.

I can't agree with that. Having seen videos from the 1970s, I found it frustrating watching riders roll forwards and backwards all the time. Excluding a rider for tape-touching is one of the better rules that has been brought out, in my opinion. There's enough delays before the start of a race as it is, with riders gardening, turning around, adjusting their clutch, checking their cut-out and helmet strap several times over, getting the steam out of their goggles and adjusting their knee pads.

I got it from the history section of the worldspeedway.org site (www.speedway.org/history/index.htm). There's plenty of information on there!

His Swedish clubs were: Folkare - 1958 and 1959 Vargarna - 1960 to 1968 Masarna - 1969, 1970 and 1979 Bysarna - 1971 to 1978 That looks like Vargarna, not Getingarna.

Click here for details of the meeting.