Bavarian

An Overseas Final as an regional qualifying round before teh SGP Challenge would be a very attractive meeting in itself. As it would carry a title of its own (Overseas Champion) it is certainly more attractive than the current annonymous SGP Qualifying rounds. that we again have spread out across the continent, taking place in Slovakia, Germany, Denmark and Italy over this weekend. Imagine an annual Overseas Final with 6 British, 6 Australian, 2 USA, 1 New Zealand, and 1 Argentinean rider. (No places needed for Canada or South Africa at the moment) Top 5 from the Overseas Final to go through to the SGP Challenge. Add the top 5 from a Nordic Final with 6 Danes, 6 Swedes, 2 Finns, and 2 Norwegians, and with the top 5 from a highly competitive Continental Final with the top Poles, Russians, Czechs, Germans, and all the other European nations, who should probably contest some preliminatry roudns first, to give each nation a fair number of representatives. That makes 15 qualified riders for the SGP Challnege, plus one seeded rider of the host nation. Top 3 from the Challenge to qualify for the SGP as we have it.

Agree, it would be better as some riders seem to have only one really outstanding good season, and are unable to replicate this in the following years. For the European Championship (SEC) they do the qualifying rounds at the beginning of the season April / May, before the finals series begins. There is no reason why it couldn't be done in the same way for the SGP World Championship series. I'd like to see something else changed. Why not return to regionalised qualifyiers ? Would spare many a rider much unneccessary traveling. Lets have three zones like we used to have many years ago, with a Continental Final, a Nordic Final, and an Overseas Final (in the UK), from where the top five riders qualify for the SGP Challenge.

... and Vadim Tarasenko is another nephew of the Laguta brothers, he is the son of their sister.

Is Neil Vatcher part of that new Great Britain Speedway Team set-up, or is he working independantly from them ?

It shows us that Denmark as a team are no longer on the same level as Poland, especially when they have to race in Poland. This 31-59 loss is a big one for the Danes and for their manager Hans Nielsen. Wouldn't it be an ideal opportunity now for the new Great Britain Speedway Team management to invite the Danes for short international series of three Test Matches to the UK this summer ? A British Lions Team, maybe with Tai Woffinden, vs Denmark would surely make an attractive Test series with crowd pulling potential !

It is a 4,000 crowd today, understandably small for this match against the Danes, compared to the huge 17,000 the local club team had for their league meeting with Wroclaw the other week.

but isn't it sad there is no Scotsman riding in this meeting ?

Totally agree with You. I have just returend home from this meeting, and was like all the other people in the stadium covered in dust from head to toe. This was cruel - if speedway was always like that I would never go again. It was not only the tv cameras, we in the stadium could not see the riders at times, either. The Polish promoters of this sereis have a habbit of leaving the tracks dry and dusty. Someone has told me they dont want the advertising boards on the fence covered with wet mud, so that the spnosors nams are always visible. Don't know if that is true. Perhaps they were cautious because some rain was on predicted for later on the day. Anyway, I can't remember seeing such massive dust clouds at a speedway meeting, and so little water being put on the track. I know that the people of AC Landshut would want to prepare their track very differently, but they are not allowed to by the Polish OneSport people, who take full control of this event. One Sport rents the race track and runs the show. Let's hope for the sake of the sport, that we will get a well prepared race track for this year' SGP challenge, which takes place at this track. I am confident it will be good, because AC Landshut will be in Charge of the track again for the SGP Challenge.

... and this is the line-up for the "historic" Scottish Open Championship, tomorrow night at Edinburgh's Armadale Speedway Richie Worrall (Glasgow & England), Marius Hillebrand (Germany), Erik Riss (Edinburgh & Germany), Tobias Thomsen (Denmark), Sam Masters (Wolverhampton & Australia), Ricky Wells (Edinburgh & USA), Joel Andersson (Edinburgh & Sweden), Matt Williamson (Edinburgh & England), Paul Starke (Glasgow & England), Mark Riss (Edinburgh & Germany), Max Ruml (Edinburgh & USA), Josh Pickering (Edinburgh & Australia), Jordie Stewart (Redcar & Australia), Rory Schlein (Ipswich & Australia), Kevin Doolan (Berwick & Australia), Ben Barker (Redcar & England). http://www.edinburghmonarchs.co/news-centre/article/2018-05-09/harrisons-again-sponsor-the-historic-scottish-open If Marius Hillebrand scores a point, I'd be surprised. A very raw rookie, even here in Germany. He has lots to learn, but seemingly he's ambitious. He comes from the same area of Germany (near the Lake Constance) as the Riss Brothers.

At least the BSPA have avoided putting Chris Harris and James Shanes into the Thursday semi-final at Sheffield, because it clashes with their world long-track meeting in Germany tomorrow (Thursday).

This OneSport Best Pairs Cup sereis is dying a slow death already. As soon as EUROSPORT stops the TV coverage of this event, it will be dead. For the Thursday high noon meeting at Landshut (public Holiday here in Bavaria) there is not one current SGP rider in any of the team line-ups. And the Landshut local company TransMF's reserve Valentin Grobauer is the lone German rider on show.

POLAND v AUSTRALIA today at 5pm (start time) at Pila live TV coverage on ELEVEN SPORTS https://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/relacja/86672/polska-australia AUSTRALIA TM Mark Lemon 1 Jason DOYLE 2 Nick MORRIS 3 Max FRICKE 4 Chris HOLDER 5 Rohan TUNGATE 6 Sam MASTERS POLAND TM Marek Cieslak 9 Jarek HAMPEL 10 Piotr PAWLICKI 11 Patryk DUDEK 12 Krzysztof KASPRZAK 13 Maciej JANOWSKI 14 Bartosz ZMARZLIK

Have You seen Czestochova v Wroclaw on Sunday night ? Awesome atmosphere with 17,000 spectators packing the Stadium - and the racing was great, too !

First reserve is now Klindt, who was third in his semifinal but eliminated due to the only-two-per-nation rule. He could get in the first 16 maybe if Nicki Pedersen is unable to ride?

International Speedway records AUSTRALIA v POLAND Played 13 Australia wins 11 Poland wins 2 6 Meetings in Australia: Australia 6-0-0 Poland . 6 Meetings in Poland: Australia 4-0-2 Poland 1 other: Australia 1-0-0 Poland 01/7/73 ... Oxford, UK ... (Daily Mirror Int'l Tournament) ... AUSTRALIA 54 - 23 POLAND 21/2/75 ... Newcastle, NSW ... (1st Test) ... AUSTRALIA 81 - 27 POLAND 26/2/75 ... Liverpool, NSW ... (2nd Test) ... AUSTRALIA 64 - 44 POLAND 01/3/75 ... Brisbane, Qld ... (3rd Test) ... AUSTRALIA 63 - 45 POLAND 08/3/75 ... Brisbane, Qld ... (4th Test) ... AUSTRALIA 55 - 53 POLAND 14/3/75 ... Newcastle, NSW ... (5th Test) ... AUSTRALIA 55 - 53 POLAND 15/3/75 ... Liverpool, NSW ... (6th Test) ... AUSTRALIA 54 1/2 - 51 1/2 POLAND 17/9/91 ... Bydgoszcz, PL ... (1st Test) ... POLAND 49 - 59 AUSTRALIA 18/9/91 ... Lublin, PL ... (2nd Test) ... POLAND 50 - 58 AUSTRALIA 19/9/91 ... Tarnow, PL ... (3rd Test) ... POLAND 39 - 69 AUSTRALIA 15/9/01 ... Warsaw, PL ... (Int'l Test) ... POLAND 39 - 50 AUSTRALIA 01/5/14 ... Ostrow, PL ... (Int'l Test) ... POLAND 54 - 39 AUSTRALIA 03/5/17 ... Krakow, PL ... (Int'l Test) ... POLAND 49 - 41 AUSTRALIA 01/5/18 ... Pila, PL ... (Int'l Test) ... POLAND v AUSTRALIA http://www.internationalspeedway.co.uk/ausvpol.htm http://www.internationalspeedway.co.uk/polvaus.htm

Having checked the records, it is not so long that Poland were beaten in one of those Test Matches. Happend to be on the 15th of May, 2016, at the National Stadium in Warsaw, when Poland lost to a very powerful Rest of the World Team by 44 to 46 points. Their international record since that last loss, includes a couple of draws (45-45 vs Russia on July 2, 2016, at Krakow, and 45-45 vs Denmark on September 2, 2016 at Lublin), and three wins in 2017 (46-44 vs Rest of the World on April 2, 2017 at Zielona Gora, 49-41 vs Australia, on May 3, 2017, at Krakow, and 54-36 vs Russia, on June 14, 2017 at Ostrow).

Well pleased with the six riders Mark Lemon has picked to take on the Poles. Having seen Batchelor ride in the Bundesliga on Saturday, it is well deserved that he has not been selected for this Test Match. Poland will be favorites to win it anyway. Always tough for any other team to beat the Poles in their own country. I wonder when was the last time Poland were beaten in an official International Test at all ? Their current unbeaten run must be quite an impressive record by now.

I hope the Aussies track their best Six for this International Test against Poland ... and beat them in their own Polish backyard !

Interesting ! The reporter says this meeting counts as a semi-final of the German Championship (of 1951?), and at the end he refers to Gunzenhauser as the German Champion of the previous year (1950?)

http://www.d-rad.ch/images/Web/Rennen/r10_speedway.jpg According to this contemporary advert Franz Heck has ridden/tested this German-built Special Dirt-Track bike at Hamburg-Lokstedt

To confirm this Franz Heck of Berlin was indeed the rider who won at the Nürburgring in 1928. If he had been practising "dirt-track" in Berlin before making his debut at Hamburg-Lokstedt in that 1929 season, he can only have ridden on one of the Berlin horse trotting tracks at Mariendorf and Ruhleben (long-tracks of 1,000 and 1,200m length), which were used for motorcycle track racing at the time. In 1929 there was no shorter "dirt-track" speedway in Berlin. Such a track was eventually opened in Berlin in March of 1930, but was not a great success. It was a much smaller oval compared to Hamburg Lokstedt. The Berlin Dirt Track was only 333m long and was built inside the existing 400m cycle track at the Olympia-Radrennbahn in Plötzensee. Other tracks for dirt-track racing in those "boom" years of 1929 and 1930 in Germany were opened at Breslau, Munich, Stuttgart, Oberhausen, Cologne, and a number of other towns, but soon the novelty factor wore off, and most of these enterprises did not last very long. In fact , Oberhausen was the only pre-war track track that was still used (revived) for Speedway after WW2, and well into the 1960s.

True, but it should not be so. One man, one team. Each rider should only have one league club to ride for, but there should be other national representative teams for teh best riders to be selected to ride for. Just as it is done in all the other popular team sports, such as Cricket, Rugby, or Football. Create international competitions for the national teams, be it Test matches, Cup tournaments, or International tours. That's what's currently missing in Speedway.

That's it - great post @RobMcCaffery Speedway is much more similar in ist fan culture to team sports like Rugby or Cricket, rather than other motorsports (F1 or MotoGP) were teh Team aspect is totally missing. Speedway has been most popular with league and national Teams racing. Look at Poland, where nothing is as popular as their speedway league. Individual or Pairs meetinsg are just a gimmick nobody really gets very excited about, except maybe for the national Championships and SEC/SGP.

How much longer will Hans Nielsen keep his job as Denmark team manager?