Bavarian

The official FIM Speedway Sidecar 1000cc World Cup will take place at Adelaide’s Gillman Speedway Stadium on Saturday night (26 March). The World Cup will be the highlight of the weekend, but it is just one part of a three day speedway carnival. On Good Friday the promoters will open the stadium with free entry to a “festival of speed” which will see over one hundred classic and current day speedway bikes and cars on display. There will also be interviews throughout the day with riders and drivers, including the visiting overseas sidecar riders here for the World Cup, plus a rock band and activities for kids – and repeating, all for free entry. The festivities will run from 10am until 4pm and then it will be time to shut up shop and start the final venue and track preparations for the World Cup 24 hours later. Gates will open at 4pm on Saturday with racing starting at 7.30pm. Spectators arriving early will have free access to the pits to get a close up look at the bikes and their riders/passengers, and then the action begins, when seven of the best Australian riders, as determined by last season’s Australian Championship results, will take on riders from Great Britain, New Zealand and the United States of America. The World Cup will be decided over 20 qualifying heats with the top three point scorers going into a final to decide the meeting winner. They’ll be joined in the final by the winner of a “last chance” semi-final for the next four highest scorers. Favourites to win the World Cup will be Darrin Treloar/Blake Cox (NSW), Mick Headland/Jesse Headland (SA), Mark Plaisted/Darcy Risstrom (SA/Vic) and Warren Monson/Matt Morgan (Vic/Qld). These riders are the best of the best. Treloar is the most successful rider in Speedway Sidecar history, Headland is a former World Track Racing Gold Trophy and World Championship winner, Plaisted is a former Oceania Champion and Monson is the current Australia #2, so the rest of the field will have their work cut out just to reach the final ahead of any of these riders. Fellow Aussies Trent Headland (and British passenger Darryl Whetstone) and Damien Niesche/Mitchell Spear have been two of the most in-form riders this season however, so it would not be a shock if either, or even both, qualified for the final. Being able to put together five good rides to consistently beat the top four will be the key, and likewise with the overseas riders. They showed in trials last meeting that they are going to be very competitive and entertaining against each other, but can they take enough points off the Australians to be in contention for a place in the semi-final? The Kiwis Andrew Buchanan/Denny Cox, Derek Ramsay/Matthew Ramsay and Aiden Thwaites/Shane Twiss, and Americans Joe Jones/Tom Summers looked to be the best chances. All You need to know http://www.gillmanspeedway.com/news/fim-speedway-sidecar-world-cup-at-gillman-speedway-on-saturday-night/

Past winners of the FIM Oceania Sidecar Speedway Championship: 2014: Mark Plaisted / Brian Anthony (South Australia) 2015: Darrin Treloar / Blake Cox (New South Wales) 2016: ???

The best Swiss speedway riders I ever saw (during the 1980s and early 90's) were Marcel Gerhard and Jessy Inauen. Certainly miles better than these two grass-trackers Reutermann and/or Kaspar, which you have selected. I would also question some of your other smaller nations' selecions. For example, Austria's greatest speedway riders ever were Fritz Dirtl and Josef Kamper, no doubt about it. Old-timer Leopold Killmayer certainly the best of the pre-war era (1930's), but Adi Funk wasn't really something special. I would rate even Josef Boessner higher than Funk.

On German Eurosport this year there will be absolutely no speedway coverage anymore. No more SEC and no more Best Pairs Cup, even though some German Sponsors have invested in teams to enter the SBPC, expecting to get live tv presentation, with a SBPC round held at Landshut, and a SEC round at Güstrow, plus the SEC Challenge at Olching. German Eurosport have stated that tv audience figures for live speedway were disappointing last year, compared to MotoGP and Superbikes coverage. Since there is still no tv coverage of the SGP and SWC here in Germany, this decision is a major set back, with once again no speedway to be seen on tv in our country.

The 2016 FIM Speedway Sidecar World Cup is held this week on Easter Saturday at Gillman Speedway, Adelaide, South Australia. Four nations are represented - Great Britain, United States, New Zealand, and Australia. SIDECAR WORLD CUP Starting list below in alphabetical order: Dylan Blain / Hamish Golding (Aus) Andrew Buchanan / Denny Cox (NZ/Aus) Mick Cave / Sam Heath (GB) Dave Gannon / Raymond George (NZ) Mick Headland / Jesse Headland (Aus) Trent Headland / Darryl Whetstone (Aus/GB) Joseph Jones / Thomas Summers (USA) Warren Monson / Andrew Summerhayes (Aus) Bryan Motis / Cody Brant (USA) Damien Niesche / Mitchell Spear (SA) Mark Plaisted / Darcy Risstrom (Aus) Derek Ramsay / Matthew Ramsay (NZ) Aiden Thwaites / Shane Twiss (NZ) Darrin Treloar / Blake Cox (Aus) Paul Whitelam / Damian Egan (GB/Aus) Rob Wilson / Liam Brown (GB) Reserves: David Bottrell / Christopher Bottrell (Aus) Rob Patterson / Don Morris (Aus) http://www.ma.org.au/index.php?id=12&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=15610&cHash=acf4e1ad6d

This year's FIM Oceania Speedway Sidecars Championship is over two rounds in Australia, at Gillman on Easter Sunday, March 27, and at Undera, on Saturday, April 2. http://www.motorcyclingvic.com.au/undera-to-host-2016-fim-oceania-sidecar-cup-in-april/

It would be a shame if the League ceases to exist because of one such incident.

Charly Ebner went flying when leading in the B final - he seems unhurt, though. Great stunt. Now Bauer jr. should win the re-run against Jetsonen and Saetre no luck for Bauer jr he stopped with an engien problem in the B-final Now for the A final with Krasnikov vs Simon vs Klatovsky adn vs the second Russian Krasnikov untroubled, but a good fight behid him until Klatovsky fell.

The top four or five excepted, the quality of the riders is very poor. This is just too easy for Mr. Krasnikov The run D, C, B , and A finals.

Point scores of day 1 of the European Championship in Ufa can be found here: http://nicesport.pl/live/199293/ice-racing-final-ime-dzien-1-ufa-rosja-21022016-godz-1000 After 20 heats, Austria's Harald Simon with 13 points is runner-up to the unbeaten Nikolai Krasnikov This TV coverage is much better than what we have seen of the world championship rounds so far this season. Good crowd in Ufa, too. Seems to me that the "Night Wolves" are doing a very good job. coming-up next: the finals of day 1 of the European Ice Racing Championship from Ufa in Russia, now live on Youtube, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUFq8LUZZTM

The F.I.M. could not even find a venue in one of the four competing teams' home countries, so why would any of the "better" tracks in Germany want to take this one on? I wonder what tempted the Wolfslake speedway club to do it ? Surely, it will be bigger and better next year when they stage it in the Arabian Emirates !

Wolfslake is not even a village, it is a few farm houses 20km northwest of the Berlin City boundary - very rural, and speedway track there is on a flat field, not in a "Stadium" Here is what the German Wikipedia says about Wolfslake: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfslake

Actually no, this island's name is not usually translated into German. It is known and referred to only by the name "Ascention" here, too. But this is not so with the Easter Island, which is generally refered to as the "Osterinsel" in German.

Rex Powell's 1935 Tasmanian speed record of 116.8 m.p.h. was established in a meeting organised by the Tasmanian Motor Cycle Club at Baker's Beach, on the North-West Coast, on the 28th of January 1935. Powell, on his 499cc o.h.v. Rudge machine, covered the flying quarter mile during the speed trials in 7.7 seconds, being equal to 116.8 miles an hour. The previous record of 104.6 m.p.h., held by Jimmy Cridge of Launceston, riding a 493 o.h.v. B.S.A. motorcycle, had been established at Baker's Beach, on January 18th, 1932.

Rex Powell was quite prominent in Tasmania as a diver of a B.S.A. side-car in various motorsports events the late 1920's. He established a new side-car record in the Launceston to Hobart motor cycle race in September of 1929. His then side-car passenger Percy Bryant would later become one of his main rivals in the dirt-track speedway events held at the Hobart Speedway in the 1929/30 and 1930/31 seasons. Rex Powell had bought himself a Rudge dirt-track bike in 1930, which he used also for the beach racing, and speed record attemts, too. In the very first speedway meeting held in Tasmania, Rex Powell rode in the solos, as well as in the side-cars events. In this inagural Hobart dirt-track meeting, Powell's first competitive race was a solo handicap heat, which he finished in second place behind the winner Les Moore (the father of the later world speedway champion Ronnie Moore). In January of 1931 Rex Powell, on his dirt-track Rudge, was challenging his former sidecar passenger Percy Bryant in a best-of-three match race for the Tasmanian Solo Championship. Powell, though, was beaten 2-1 by Bryant. Rex Powell was one of the most prominent members of the Southern Tasmanian Motor-cycle Club. He was described as a "crack" rider, having won a large number of trophies to his credit. Being a skilled mechanic, he carried out all his own tuning. Powell set up a Tasmanian speed record, riding his Dirt Track Rudge at Green's Beach, Tamar Heads, Tasmania, on April 25, 1930, averaging 104.5 miles-per-hour over a quarter of a mile, on his three-and-a-half horse-power Rudge-Whitworth motor-cycle. The previous record was 97 m.p.h. and 100 miles an hour had not previously been registered on a motor-cycle in Tasmania.

As far as I know Robert Lambert will no longer get a German license. He is British, and represents the ACU in international Events. Fofr this year he is, like every other foreign rider, regarded as an A-grader in this year's Bundeliga. He will take up one of the A-grade positions for the foreign riders (non DMSB license holders) in the DMV White Tigers team.

Which in English language is called the Ascension Day.

Does anybody know why Declyn Adams does not ride speedway anymore?

Nicki's love life makes Headlines in the Danish Press http://www.bt.dk/motorsport/se-billederne-nicki-pedersen-scorer-ung-bikini-model

None of the Russians in ice speedway racing is a professional rider, that is simply not possible to make a living from the very few meetings and the poor earnings offered in this sport. They are all Amateur riders, just like ther Westerners, but of course, the Russians have a better set-up at their clubs (who pay for, own and maintain the bikes), and much more opportunities to practise.

I have just found out that Karl Killmeyer was still alive until late last year, he died just short of his 92nd birthday (born 29 Oct 1923, died 23 Oct 2015)

Great discovery, Doug, I knew about his song, but until now had never heard it anywhere.

The former Soviet Union had some speedway tracks in her Asian Republics, for example the track were Sergey Darkin originally came from, Fergana in Uzbekhistan. There have been one or two speedway tracks in Kazakhstan as well. Kazahkstan now has ice racign at Almaty. And of course, Mongolia had ice speedway racing at Ulan Bator in the late 1960's until the mid 1980s. An attempt to get ice speedway racing started in North-eastern China was made a few years ago.

Malaysia was tried in 2007, but for some reason it lasted just one season. Here is the old BSF Topic http://www.speedway-forum.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=35360&hl=malaysia I wonder if the ambitious project (as was recently mentioned in Speedway Star) of Gary Hay and Jimmy Ogisu, and backed by the Yamaha Motorcycle Company, to stage a speedway meeting in Tokyo this year will ever become reality, I have strong doubts about this. Perhaps with BSI/IMG on board it could be done?

Totally agreee with Mr. Appelby. I couldn't care less for a competiton like this, with made-up Pairs/Pairs representing some obscure sponsors. It is a shame that such a "Mickey Mouse" competition gets prime time tv all over Europe on EUROSPORT, as it won't be worth much.