Bavarian

"don't drink and drive"

Khuzhin was very close to lose his life, and he is still in a coma and in intensive care in a Hospital. Tolkonov has nearly lost his left foot, they were just able to safe the most of it, but he has lost two toes, and he will need a long time to recover from that. Terrible injuries for two of the younger riders in ice racing. This is a major blow for the already precarious future this sport.

Are there still any supporters clubs in speedway in the UK, like there used to be in the past?

The final race on Saturday night (Day 1) at Togliatti

Here You can see the incident. Toloknov is the rider in yellow.

Toloknov had a pretty nasty accident in his thrid heat. His left foot got tangled between the back wheel and mudgard of another bike,. The sole of the boot was totally ripped up by the spinning wheel's spikes. There was quite a lot of blood on the ice, his foot must be severely damaged. He was carried away in an ambulance car.

Why is there no Lamothe team in the league this year, and no other speedway meetings at Lamothe on their season calendar?

Just a reminder that the Colin Jewes' speedwaychampions website is up and running again (though no longer updated) at a new web adress https://speedwaychampions.yolasite.com/

iris123 has already posted some info about Bremen http://www.speedway-forum.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/91176-bremen-hansastadion/ and I will add some info about Oldenburg: The Oldenburg Speedway operated for twelve years from 1952 until 1963, but they held only fifteen speedway meetings in total. The venue was the "Viktoria Kampfbahn" at Osternburg, which was a quite narrow 400m cinder track surrounding a football pitch. Here are some old photos http://www.oldenburgermedienarchiv.de/detail/media?page=1&mediafilter=all&container=tag&cid=1144 The inaugural speedway meeting at Oldenburg on July 21, 1952, was a four team event, with a packed 12,000 sell-out crowd in attendance. This meeting was won by MSC Neumünster (59 Points) from MSC Oldenburg (57 Points), MSC Bremen (44 Points) and MSC Hamburg (37 Points). Oldenburg's local hero Hans Jäger set a one lap track record (from a flying start) averaging 62.2 kph. For all the other fourteen individual meetings held at Oldenburg, these are the dates, the winners and placegetters: 2nd Meeting (July 19, 1953): 1st Hans JÄGER (Oldenburg), 2nd Fritz RINGEL (Hamburg), 3rd Hermann HUSS (Neumünster), 4th Walter GERNERT (Hamburg). 3rd Meeting (June 17, 1954): 1st Alfred DANNMEYER (Hamburg), 2nd Hans JÄGER (Oldenburg), 3rd Fritz RINGEL (Hamburg), 4th Hermann HUSS (Neumünster). 4th Meeting (May 19, 1955): 1st Heino RODICK (Oldenburg), 2nd Sedan GRAF (Hamburg), 3rd Walter GERNET (Hamburg), 4th Hans ZIOLKOWSKI (Hanover). 5th Meeting (July 29, 1956): 1st Hans JÄGER (Oldenburg), 2nd Paul CORDANG (Holland), 3rd Hans ZIERK (GDR), 4th Fritz RINGEL (Hamburg). 6th Meeting (July 28, 1957): 1st Hans JÄGER (Oldenburg), 2nd Hans ZIERK (GDR), 3rd Fritz RINGEL (Hamburg), 4th Nico VAN GORCUM (Holland). 7th Meeting (May 4, 1958): 1st Marian KAISER (Poland), 2nd Fritz RINGEL (Hamburg), 3rd Hans JÄGER (Oldenburg), 4th Ray HARRIS (England). 8th Meeting (September 14, 1958): 1st Hans ZIERK (GDR), 2nd Horst FEIST (Bremen), 3rd Manfred ZIERK (GDR), 4th Fritz RINGEL (Hamburg). 9th Meeting (May 3, 1959): 1st Ray HARRIS (England), 2nd Tommy SWEETMAN (England), 3rd Nico VAN GORCUM (Holland), 4th Hans JÄGER (Oldenburg). 10th Meeting (August 16, 1959): 1st Kurt W. PETERSEN (Denmark), 2nd Erik KASTEBO (Denmark), 3rd Fritz RINGEL (Hamburg), 4th Hans JÄGER (Oldenburg). 11th Meeting (May 8, 1960): 1st Kurt W. PETERSEN (Denmark), 2nd Erich LUTHER (Austria), 3rd Ray HARRIS (England), 4th Josef BÖSSNER (Austria). 12th Meeting (May 7, 1961): 1st Han VAN DER SLUIS (Holland), 2nd Erik KASTEBO (Denmark), 3rd H. P. BOISEN (Denmark), 4th Kalevi LAHTINEN (Finland). 13th Meeting (September 23, 1961): 1st Han VAN DER SLUIS (Holland), 2nd Alois FRACH (Oberhausen), 3rd Fritz RINGEL (Hamburg), 4th Kurt SCHWINGENSCHLÖGL (Austria). 14th Meeting (May 6, 1962): 1st Kalevi LAHTINEN (Finland), 2nd Bo HAKANSSON (Sweden), 3rd Han VAN DER SLUIS (Holland), 4th Alois FRACH (Oberhausen). 15th Meeting (April 21, 1963): 1. Poul WISSING (Denmark), 2nd Kurt W. PETERSEN (Denmark), 3rd Erik KASTEBO (Denmark), 4th Glyn CHANDLER (England).

No, apparently nothing came of this in 1929. There seems to have been a least three consortiums of would be dirt-track promoters tryign to run the Sport in the German capital. But it wasn't until March of 1930 until a dirt-track speedway was acutally opened in Berlin. That was at the Olympia Radrennbahn in Berlin-Plötzensee. It was a tiny 350m track inside a steeply banked concre surfaced cycle track and did in no way match the amazing success of the pacey one-third-of- a- mile Hamburg Dirt-Track. Failing to attract big enough crowds to make it pay (the grand opening meeting in March was "snowed-off" and had to be delayed for a week), Berlin's track was shut down again after only three months, never to be re-opened. At the same time, long-track motorcycle racing (Sandbahnrennen) with much higher speeds, at a couple of Berlin's 1000m venues for horse racing (Berlin-Mariendorf and Berlin-Karlshorst) became popular and somehow outshone the slower speeds of the riders racing on the cinder track.

Great Picture of Munich's two most famous horse racing tracks. In fact, both tracks seen in this picture were tried for motorcycle racing before WW2. The track in front is the 1000m Trabrennbahn in München-Daglfing, and this track is in fact the cradle of "Sandbahnrennen" = long track racing in our country. The very first such meeting with motorcycles racing on a lose dirt/sand surface oval racetrack was held at Daglfing in conjunction with a bicycle race in the summer of 1921. The motorcycle races were most exciting and easily outshone the cycle races. The bicycle races were in the following years altoghether dropped from the program in favour of the motorbikes. The biggest international motorcyle track racing events at Daglfing were the annual Golden Helmet of Germany (Goldhelm von Deutschland) meetings, inaugurated in 1933, when the Führer AH himself was the donator of the trophy. The first Golden Helmet was won in pouring rain by the sidecar driver Josef Möritz, in a handicap race final that featured the day's fastest solos and sidecars of all the various classes. The track in the background of the picture is the much larger (2000m) Galopprennbahn in München-Riem. This track was used only once for a motorcycle grass track meeting in the autumn of 1931. The racing there on a very soft track surface was not nearly as good as at Daglfing, and as the turf was quite damaged by the bikes ,and cars racing in that one-off meeting München-Riem, it was not to be repeated.

Yes, at least two international speedway meetings were held at Santarem in Portugal. The first was a European Club Team Cup round in 1999, and the second a world under 21 qualifying round, featuring a couple of British riders, Danny Bird and Grant MacDonald, as well as a couple of Aussies, Kevin Doolan and Travis McGowan, and Canada's Chris Slabon. There were no Portugese riders though. Here is a link to the German Speedway Forum were You can find a scan of the program cover for this meeting https://www.speedway-forum.de/gallery/index.php?image/3495-world-junior-speedway-championship-qr-14-05-2000-santarém-portugal-official-prog/ The current FIM president Jorge Viegas had something to do with the introduction of speedway to his home country. You can find the story (in Polish language) with a couple of pictures of the venue at the speedwaynews.pl website https://www.speedwaynews.pl/aktualnosci/item/68342-z-a-marle-tory-15-miedzynarodowy-speedway-na-arenie-do-corridy

Yes indeed, because flat track bikes and equipment is far easier to get out there compared to the very special speedway bikes. Flat track racing is even already popular in some of the other African countries, such as Zimbabwe https://www.herald.co.zw/flat-track-racing-back-at-dbrook/ By the way, South Africa still has plenty of speedway tracks, but just like in NZ or Australia most are nowadays used for the sprintcars/speedcars/Stockcars racing only. But there is also still a small but dedicated band of Speedway Sidecar racers out there in the Jo'burg area.

This is an interesting topic. It is a shame that the F.I.M. has done next to nothing to help the sport to grow again in all those minor speedway nations throughout the years the F.I.M. cashed in millions of Dollars from BSI/IMG for the SGP rights. Now they get even more money from DISCOVERY/EUROSPORT, but I don't think any of that money will go fund help maintain and develope the sport internationally. There are so many countries where speedway racing is on the brink of extinction. In the past ten years the sport has died out in Canada, South Africa, Bulgaria, and will soon be gone in Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Holland, Belgium, and even Italy. I wonder what this SGP4 concept of the Discovery Corporation is all about? Does anybody know?

The Polish national team has four test matches scheduled for the 2022 season. Their opposition is as yet unknown. Could Great Britian be invited over to Poland for a return match following last year's test defeat of the Poles at Glasgow? Is anything known about GB test matches in 2022 ?

AUSTRALIA v ENGLAND speedway tests were a highlight in our sport for such a long time. This is one of the last test series of the England Team touring Australia in 1994, and it is the first test at the world famous Sydney Showground Speedway Royale. Sadly gone and a thing of the past now!

Never knew that there ever was something like an official Australia v England Test Series in Long-Track Racing. But here it is from way back in 1983. Fascinating!

Sigvart Pedersen appeared only twice in the Norwegian Final, finishing eight in 1977 and fourth in 1978 He was third in the Norwegian Pairs Final of 1978 (with Thoralf Holen, representing NMK Grenland) He scored one point in his only appearance for Norway in the World Team Cup of 1978

Will the qualifying meeting at Ö-vik go ahead to day, or has it already been cancelled?

Who wants to see such a meeting in April? Perhaps around Christmas/New Year this gimmick could draw a crowd, but in April ?

A 1000m track like the one at Jübek is a great venue for Flat Track racing. Much better than the tiny 300m track at Nordhastedt, which is just to small and narrow for the Flat Track bikes.

Link to Inzell website https://www.dmv-eisspeedway.de/ Link to Heerenveen website https://ijsspeedway.nl/en/