Bavarian

Are there any international test matches planned for next season? With such a limited league program, tracks would have many free racedays to host England test matches (or Team GB). The national team riders would surely be happy to represent their country and get extra opportunities to race and earn some extra money. And the fans would get the chance to see something in addition to the regular league meetings ! How about a revival England v Denmark series ? Or England v Sweden ? Or for the juniors a Young Lions vs USA series ? or vs France - that would be something new ! Why is there no initiative ? Does the BSPA only think about their clubs ? How narrow minded is this !

No results from Dunedin so far, but I found this short report in today's Otago Daily Times https://www.odt.co.nz/sport/motorsport/swinging-100kmh-all-nights-work

Yes, You are right @Duane its at Tamworth for the 2018 Aussie title

Me too

Each club should have their exclusive seven-man team for the season. Doubling-up riders should only be allowed as an additional squad for the teams. Each Premiership club should have a 1-7 of their own riders, plus a squad of three or four double-ups from the lower league to call on in case of injuries or absentees of their regular riders. Likewise in the Championship, with the douple-up squad riders being drafted from the NL. Double-up riders should largely be used instead of guest riders. A guest should only be allowed in case of covering for an absent heat leader. Second strings and reserves should always have to be replaced with a rider from the club's squad of lower league double-ups.

Unfortunately the first of this season's State title meetings, the Queensland Championship at Maryborough Speedway had to be cancelled today (Nov.18, 2017) due to the weather. This event was scheduled to be re-staged at Maryborough Speedway on February 3. https://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/news/qld-sidecar-titles-cancelled-at-maryborough-speedw/3268904/ Other dates and venues for sidecar speedway championships 2017-18 in Australia are: Victorian Sidecar Championship (Jan.26, 2018) @ Olympic Park Speedway, Mildura Queensland Sidecar Championship (Feb.3, 2018) @ Maryborough Speedway was again cancelled / this event will not be restaged New South Wales Sidecar Championship (Feb. 10, 2018) @ Oakburn Park Speedway, Tamworth Western Australian Sidecar Championship (March 10, 2018) @ Pinjar Park Speedway, Perth South Australian Sidecar Championship (March 24, 2018) @ Gillman Speedway, Adelaide Oceania Sidecar Championship (March 31, 2018) @ Gillman Speedway, Adelaide F.I.M. Sidecar Speedway World Cup (April 1, 2018) @ Gillman Speedway, Adelaide Australian Sidecar Championship (April 13-14, 2018) @ Oakburn Park, Tamworth

The fixed race nights in teh Premiership League is only introduced to keep on with the double-up of riders in both leagues and avoid fixture clashes of the Premiership and Championship clubs. Not sure if this is really desireable, all it will do is increase the number of double-up riders between both leagues. It won't be long until some clubs chose to, or have to, race one or other of their home meetings on off-nights other than their exclusive Mondays and/or Thursdays. Anyway, no more than half of the teams can have a home meeting on the same night, while the other half has to race as the away teams on that night. I have my doubts if fixed race will be a good thing for British Speedway.

Josef Hofmeister was born in Abensberg, Bavaria, on the 17th of June, 1934, so he is not far off now . Another soon to enter the top 20 is a certain Barry Briggs, born 30 Dec 1934

True, but these "good" riders rather shouldn't ride in so many different leagues, but more often get the chance to represent their countries in international matches. That's how it is done in other sports. This would be much more acceptable than riding for two, three, or who knowns how many different league clubs at the same time. A meaningful F.I.M. competition for full international teams, that is what's missing ! We have the SWC as an annual four-team tournament, fine, that's o.k., but it could be so much better if it was a Team vs Team competition. Even if such a tournament was held only every four years, this would be an absolutely outstanding event for world speedway. There should be England, England 'A', and England U-21, England U-16 (250cc) national teams, and it should be attempted to resurrect other home nations' team (Scotland, Wales), that's a long shot, I know, but perhaps it could be achieved initially by recruiting some Colonial boys with Scottish or Welsh roots. Bringing up home grown talents should be the ultimate goal of course. This has been done in the past, and it is done in other sports where it works reasonably well. Aspire to achieve !

Bavaria's very own, and Germany's first speedway world finalist of 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1960, Josef "Wack" Hofmeister" is still around and in very good shape. Don't know exactly how old he is though.

Every Major Sport now has a proper World Cup tournament as the flagship competition. Why can't we have one for Speedway? Who says there are not enough competitive nations to track teams for a proper World Cup tournament in Speedway? I currently watch the Rugby League World Cup, a sport that is professionally played in only a handful of countries, Yet the RL authorities manage to organise a great World Cup tournament with fourteen national teams and attracts reasonably good crowds and has world wide tv coverage. It is even shown on German TV, and nobody really knows anything about Rugby League in our country. How sad to see that Speedway in this respect has fallen behind so badly. The 1973 Daily Mirror Tournament of Nations was the best we ever achieved in organising a tournament with seven proper national teams (England, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, USSR, and a combined Norway-Denmark team) in a round-robin tournament, followed by a couple of semi-finals, and culminating in the grand finale at Wembley. This should have been the start of something big, but look where we are now. We don't even have any meaningfull International Test Matches anymore. There is not even an England speedway team anymore, all we are left with is a "Team GB" ! How often did this team race this year ? Come on, how poor is that ? I'd love to see the England team in International Speedway Test Matches again ! High level international Test Matches is what I miss most in modern day speedway !

The NEW ZEALAND v AUSTRALIA Trans Tasman Sidecar Speedway Test Series gets under way this month at Christchurch https://www.facebook.com/events/1302938039816093/

Apparently the FIM is unable to find a promoter (outside Poland) willing and able to host the 2018 SWC Race-Off and Final under the current format. Manchester was first choice, but it seems the problem here is all about finance. How poor is this?

FIM should rather try this pairs system for their ill-born WSL World Speedway League (if that will ever get off the ground) Would give seven Club Champions from Polish, British, Swedish, Danish, Russian, German, and Czech leageus a chance to participate and with only three riders per team would ease the problem of riders on the books of two or more of those league clubs. But they should not be allowed to tamper the concept of the SWC

What a terribly sad decision if the FIM replaces the current SWC with a pairs competiton. Exactly the same mistake they made in the mid-90s, when they merged the then World Pairs with the then World Team Cup, instead of keeping both competitons alive and alternately stage them bi-annually.

I noticed there were mostly elderly people in attendance at the Ethiad - and it did not come across as if they had a lot of fun during the most part of this meeting - it all looked rather dull They should have let children in for free and youths under16 for a fiver or so, to get the families to attend and liven the place up for this speedway Showcase event. Too late now ! Nevertehless it is sad to see that Grand Prix Speedway in Melbourne did not attract the crowds to continue with this venture. For the future, if they want to return to Australia & NZ, I'd say that they should not do it for just one event, they should run a mini series of three or four SGPs down under. Don't make the mistake of going into the biggest stadia such as Sydney Olympic Stadium or now the Ethiad in Melbourne. This does not work. SGP should seek medium sized stadia, perhaps return to some of those classic old Showground venues that had so long been the cathedrals of Australian speedway, ever since it all began there. There are still some of these venues left, some even have national heritage status and are preserved, such as the EKKA up in Brisbane, just waitign to be used again. There is Adelaide's Wayvielle Showground, which hosted a world sicdecar speedway Championship meeting some years ago. In Sydney, they have built a New Showground that could be used for a SGP, as they have already held an Australian Solo Championship round there. They could widen the rather narrow race track for a SGP there if need be. That's three great speedway venues in Australia, and I am sure there are other possibilities, but I see this as the way to go for the BSI/IMG to establish the SGP outside of Europe.

The Walkerville Motorcycle Dirt Track Club has a Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/groups/1440344566230680/

Don't know, but I think it is the East (Donbass and Lugansk region) where it is dangerous. Rivne is in the west of the Ukraine, not far from the Polish borders. They have international Football games in the Ukraine, so it can not be that dangerous. And they have big crowds for their speedway meetings. Personally I would not want to go there for a SGP, though!

they would get a huge attendance for the SGP in the Ukraine (Rivne)

Torun stinks ! it was Torun who were illegally paying money to the Peterborough promoter for Jack Holder, and now it is Torun again with this attempted Jacek Gomolski bribary I hope the PZM and League takes firm action. They did not hesitate to punish RoW Rybnik and deducted just enough points for them to get relegated to the lower league. For the club, that was a really harsh punishment, for one of their riders (Laguta) failing a drugs test. This Rybnik club's punishment saved Torun from automatic relegation. Now I wonder what the PZM will do with Torun in this bribary scandal. Torun should never get away with such dirty behaviour. It stinks!

Any British touring riders going to New Zealand this winter?

Funny But in truth, there are now so many non-Bavarain folk living in our beautiful Freestate, that we "real" Bavarians won't ever get a majority to break away from the rest of Germany. Our position is quite similar to Scotland wanting to break away from England but unable to get a majority vote for that because there are already too many non-Scots living there and unwilling to vote for Independance. Not sure why Bavarians would come across as arrogant in any way? Never heard that before! Mostly it's the Prussians that are arrogant towards the Bavarians. We are much closer related with the Austrians, who speak the same language as we do.

Yes, Landshut is definitly better than Teterow. There already was a German SGP at Landshut about twenty years ago ! The organizeres were a bit unlucky with that one, as it was the first SGP that ever got rained off, and they had to re-stage it on the following day on Sunday afternoon.

You are all a bit too negative. It is an achievement already for the Young Lion to have reached the top four nations final in this Junior Team Championship. Except for the Poles, who are really miles ahead at the moment, I don't think that the Aussies are so superior (once You remove Holder, Fricke and Kurtz), and Denmark seems to struggle very much to find new stars. Britain is very nearly on the same level as these two nations, and probably already ahead of Sweden with their junior riders. The situation is not at all bad for GB.

German girl Celina Liebmann rode in the FIM 250cc Youth Speedway World Final this week in Prague,and she had a couple of heat wins !