Bavarian

here is a short local tv report of the Abensberg meeting, shows how bad the conditions were http://www.tvaktuell.com/mediathek/video/abensberg-speedway-im-dauerregen/

Somerset or Belle Vue?

The loss of Wembley and the White City for the big meetings in London was also in the early 1980's. That's the time when the downward trend started.

Gollob deserves a better fare-well than what he got at last year's Warsaw SGP fiasco. This Poland vs RoW on the Sunday in the National Stadium would have been the perfect opportunity to honor him for his great achievements for Polish speedway. Compared with Tomek Gollob, Pawel Przedpelski is an extremely poor choice as a replacement for Hampel.

The Poles should have brought in Tomek Gollob - he would have been the perfect replacement for Hampel in this match

The sun is shining and the track will soon be dry again. Racing to resume pretty soon.

Today is Mothers Day here in Bavaria, and Germany, too.

I had just read that Hampel is not ready to race in the Warsaw SGP and will be replaed by Freddie Lindgren. So I assumed he would not be fit enough to ride one day later in the Warsaw test match versus the Rest of the World. But if he regards this match as an oppportunity to test his race fitness, he might possibly turn up and take his place. We'll see.

not DEN (=Denmark), it is DE(=Deutschland, Germany) 1st and 2nd in this meeting. Tim Wunderer is a protegée of Martin Smolinski.

Hampel ??? surely not !

Thank you gustix, here is another most interesting link for South African speedway history http://www.speedway-sa.com/history-border.php and a link to the "Henry Long Story" with plenty of old pictures of South Africa's greatest speedway rider http://www.speedway-sa.com/the-henry-long.php

I left the Stadium after heat 21, neither disappointed, nor excited, by what I had seen. It was a bank Holiday here in Bavaria, so it felt like a Sunday afternoon. Nice weather, good crowd and a very well organised meeting by the OneSport Crew. Monster Energy is already deeply involved with this Best Pairs series. Funny how quick the SGP/SWC main sponsors havee taken to the OneSport event. Anyway, I can't be bothered about if Monster of Nice or Fogo or who ever wins this meeting. I was not keeping score and not filling in the programme, and it felt a bit strange. Something was missing. It is clearly not enough to just watch four riders race over four laps. This alone does not get me excited. There was not a lot of overtaking, and it was quite windy and dusty at times, so the crowd did not really get excited by the track action. But to be fair, there were some good heats, such as Huckenbeck defeating Hancock, and a particular good battle between Laguta and Iversen. Yes, the crowd was behind local hero Smolinski, who, on his Bundesliga home track, rode as good as we expected him to be. Had seen enough after the regular 21 heats and left early, thus avoiding the traffic jam which ususally occures after the end of meetings at the Landshut track.

I go to Landshut tomorrow, it is my local track and we don't get to see the big names here very often. BUT, for the first time I intend not to fill in a programme. I simply can't be bothered about which sponor's riders win or lose. I will go there tomorrow trying just to watch "four riders race over four laps", like some BSF members on here often tell us this is what speedway is all about. So, I am looking forward to this "new experience" of attending a speedway meeting not bothering about points scores or who rides for which team.

But why did they allow to chose a rural country track like Wolfslake in the first place to host a "prestigeous" FIM event such as this World Speedway League ? The choice of this venue was all wrong from the start. It may be located NEAR Berlin, but it is not Berlin. Not more like for example Armadale isn't Edinburgh. It is an out of town speedway track in rural country, and the Wolfslake track does not have anything, no grandstands, no floodlights etc. - this is, and never was, a secret.

Let's hope so. Next year's WSL final is in Dubai or Qatar and that should be live on tv.

How stupid is this? Do the Russian MFR really think that the Laguta's will ride for them in the SWC, when they treat them like that?

Why is Smolinski allowed to ride for Munkebo, a team he never rode for and has no affiliation with?

Meeting rained-off, Denis Stojs is likely to get teh wild Card (tbc)

I thought it was very boring to watch, because it was totally meaningless. No nation or club teams/pairs to get behind and support. I could not care less if Monster, Nice or City Team wins this series. I don't even know for which teams most of the riders turned out last night. Who cares? I see it as a well paid practise session for the riders before the SGP and Polish Ekstraleague gets under way.

Ah ok then Monster Joe will be a happy dude tonight.

Can anyone tell us who won this meeting?

The 2016 FIM Oceania Speedway 1000cc Sidecar Championship has been won by the title defending champion of last year, Darrin Treloar. The final of the first round at Gillman last Sunday was won by Treloar, and today's second round final at Undera was won by Warren Monson. Overall top 3: 1st .... Darrin TRELOAR (& Blake Cox) - AUSTRALIA 2nd ... Trend HEADLAND (& Darryl Whetstone) - AUSTRALIA 3rd .... Mark PLAISTED (& Darcy Risstrom) - AUSTRALIA

I'd bet for the next round of this tournaent, the composition of the pairs/teams will look different again. Seems this has been transforemd into an event to put the sponsors in the spotlight and on tv. Just which rider is in which team seems totally irrelevant. An absolute nonsense competition in my eyes.

Australia's Darrin Treloar has won a crash marred final of the F.I.M. Speedway Sidecar World Cup at Gillman Speedway in Adelaide read more: http://www.gillmanspeedway.com/news/darrin-treloarblake-coxwin-crash-marred-world-cup-championship-final/

True "Wack" hofmeister was a teenage sensation in teh early 1950's. He was our German (Bavarian) version of Ronnie Moore. An extremely popular "baby-face" speedway rider. He quit the sport in the early 60's, havign reached four consecutive Wembley World Finals and he was still young and riding at his peak when he called it quits.