Bavarian

The track at St.Johann was in much worse condition than the one at Almaty. Racing on the second day at Almaty was not as bad as on the first day. There were some overtaking manoevres and close battles for positions, and some spectacular crashes, too. The racing, though, I admit, was not as good as it should have been. But except for the problems with the ice surface of the racetrack, the organisation of the two-day event in Kazakhstan was first class. The Ice Speedway Grand Prix Series will be back in Kazahkstan next year, and the year after. Almaty has a 3-year contract with the FIM. Next season the ice racing world Championship may even visit another Asian country. Accordng to the F.I.M., a Grand Prix in China is still on the cards. And then, why shouldn't they be thinking about a revival of the sport in Mongolia as well? Let's hope that Ice Speedway can be established in Asia. It would be a much needed boost for a Sport that seems to vanish more and more in Central and Western Europe.

Darrin Treloar and passenger Blake Cox have made it two from two in the Oceania Sidecar Championship with another victory at Mildura’s Olympic Park on Wednesday night. Meeting report here http://www.ma.org.au/index.php?id=12&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=14609&tx_ttnews[backPid]=6&cHash=f80dd69e29 The final round 3 is tomorrow Saturday night at Loxford Park in Kurri Kurri, NSW.

F.I.M. Oceania Sidecar Speedway Championship 2014/15: Round 1 - 07.02.2015 - Gillman Speedway, Adelaide, S.A. Round 2 - 11.02.2015 - Olympic Park Speedway, Mildura, Vic. Round 3 - 14.02.2015 - Loxford Park Speedway, Kurri Kurri, N.S.W. Report of round 1 at Gillman, here http://www.gillmanspeedway.com/news/treloarcox-the-leaders-after-round-one-of-the-oceania-sidecar-championship/ Results, here http://www.gillmanspeedway.com/results/results-gillman-speedway-meeting-number-9-saturday-7-february-2015/

Here is hope that one day soon, other continental federations, such as F.I.M. North America and F.I.M. Oceania organise their own continental speedway championships, just the same as the FIM Europe already does. For a start, the F.I.M. Oceania already run their own 1,000cc sidecar speedway championship in Australia. The next step is an F.I.M. Oceania Solo Speedway Championship.

British sidecar speedway pilots Mark Cossar and Michael Stace are competing in Australia in the 1,000cc sidecar speedway Continental Championship of F.I.M. Oceania. The opening round was last night (Saturday, 7 February) at Gillman Speedway in South Australia. Two World Champions, the Oceania Champion, and National Champions from four countries are amongst the riders who will contest the three round series this year, with meetings at Gillman, Mildura and Kurri Kurri. Former world champions Darrin Treloar (NSW) and Mick Headland (SA), and the reigning Oceania Champion, Mark Plaisted (SA), will lead the Australian riders against the British (Mark Cossar), New Zealand (Paul Humphrey) and USA (Joe Jones) champions. The multiple British Champion Cossar will be more than a match for them if he can repeat last season’s form when he became the first overseas rider to win a round of the national grand slam series. Other multiple championship winning riders taking part include former Australian and South Australian Champion Mark Mitchell who finished third behind Treloar and Headland in last weekend’s Grand Slam round; multiple New South Wales Champion Grant Bond; and Victorian Champions Warren Monson and Byren Gates.

Never knew that there is a speedway track at Veddestavallen-Stockholm. Is this a new track?

Here is a link to an interesting Norwegian online newspaper report about their veteran speedway riders. http://www.nrk.no/magasin/gamlegutta-som-elsker-speedway-1.11903160

This amazes me. What did the two Brits expect in Argentina? V.I.P. treatment? A five star luxury hotel? Big appearance money as they deem themsleves as true Superstars of the game? Do the other foreign riders get this? I don't think so. Fact is, that Barker and Worrall have returned home now, after spending ten days in South America, with (as Richie Worrall says) "their money still in their pockets." Fact is, that the Argentinean promoters are well out of pocket having payed for the two riders' air travel tickets and accomodation. Fact is, that Barker and Worrall did not honour the contract, which they had signed, that's to ride in the International speedway series over there. Comparing their behaviour with that of other European riders, who have ridden in Argentina in previous years, I can not recall many, if any at all, who have abandoned their time over there, for the reasons cited by the two Brits in this case. . As I see it, the Argentinean promoters, who are not very rich, still struggle to overcome the effects of that tragic fatal accident of Matija Duh there a couple of years ago. An unfortunate accident that could have happened anywhere else in the world. Yet it is always used as an argument about how dangerous and poorly organised Argentinean speedway is. But the tracks in Argentina are since fitted with air fences. Not different to many of the tracks in Continental European countries.

The National League is the most enjoyable and financially sustainable of the three speedway leagues in the UK.

But it means, that Darcy Ward could not get that wild card , if he has served his ban by the time of the Melbourne SGP.

I'm sure the Polish fans will travel. Even in Poland, a speedway meeting in the National Stadium is something special. A 50,000-plus crowd would make the Warsaw SGP the biggest speedway meeting in the world.

Or stage an England v Germany Speedway Test Match at Wembley - I wonder if that would attract a 55,000 crowd?

Rugby Union's IRB show how to promote the sport. I love watching the Rugby test matches, and the Rugby World Cup. This is what I miss most in Speedway. When was the last time that ENGLAND (not the bloodless "Team GB") rode in an official Speedway Test Match? A long time ago. Why don't we have a proper Speedway World Cup with team vs team matches instead of a four-team-tournament? This is poor. Not so long ago, Speedway used to enjoy the same popularity as Rugby Union, but look at the difference now.

It's only seven Teams in the Ekstraliga at the Moment. Rzeszow will not move up. There is something wrong when the richest teams can have all the top stars and the poorer teams simply are no longer competitive or go bust financially as was the case this year with Czestochowa and Gdansk. Some form of rider control is needed in Poland.

I like this one here http://redmcleod.com/2013/10/21/7/ Ronnie's got a tiger in his

Is this the end for Hammarby Speedway then?

Great News about the New Zealand Solo Speedway League. With three teams this is the perfect size and sustainable for NZ. Long may it continue and prosper!

All we hear about ice racing in China is rumours, no hard facts. Apparently they had a demonstration ice racing meeting some ten years ago in Harbin on the local 400m ice rink, with Russian riders from Blagoveshensk and even the two Swedes Serenius and Svensson. The plan then was to train Chinese moto-cross riders to become ice racers, but this has not progressed. Now they have targeted another Chinese town, very close to the Russian border, near Blagoveshensk on the river Amur. I guess it is the Russians that are helping the Chinese to get ice racing started, just like they did in the 1960's when introducing ice racing in Mongolia. It seems that someone is still working on the project of introducing ice speedway racing to China. The FIM seems keen on the idea of getting China on board. Believign rumours, 2016 could be the year of the inaugural Ice Racing Grand Prix in China.

The riders Conkers has mentioned above (Cheblakov, Kuznetsov, Popov, plus Nail Galiakberov) who rode for Kazakhstan in the FIM ice racing world team championship, may have originally been of Russian nationally or ancestry, rather than being Kazakh natives, but they were all locals at Alma Ata (now: Almaty)and they had become citizens of Kazahkstan after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Otherwise they would not have been able to represent Kazakhstan in the World Team Championship, because the racing license is irrelevant in determining which country a rider can represent in FIM world team events. He needs to hold the respective country's passport to be eligible to ride for that country's national team. Kazakhstan were in four consecutive ice racing world team championship finals (1994-1997)and have a pretty good record. They won a couple of bronze medals (Frankfurt 1995 and Izhevsk 1996), and finished fourth in the 1994 final in Karlstad and fourth again in the 1997 final in Berlin. Kazakhstan has even already hosted an individual ice racing Grand Prix before. That was staged at Almaty in February of 1994. Alexander Balashov was victorious on the Saturday and on the Sunday.

perfect timing then this competition is artificial, created just to give Matt Ford's Pirates a chance to win a "world cup". Who cares?

Holder now withdrawn, will not ride for Piraterna in this meeting. Maybe someone did not want him to ride AGAINST Poole?

There won't be many SGP riders in the Elite League anyway. The one or two who are will be replaced by guest riders, so how would the Aussie GP interrupt the end of the UK speedway season?

It's six man teams in this international test match. Wouldn't this be a handy formula for the UK Leagues next year? Does anybody already know the heat scheme for this meeting?

I am told that this meeting is off now that Czestochowa was refused a new Ekstraliga license for 2015. Seems their massive financial problems are eventually killing them. Speedway in Czestochowa will have to be re-started with a new club beginning in Division 2 next year. Orzel Lodz also won't get promoted into the Ekstraliga, since the facilities of their stadium do not meet the minimum requirements of the EL.

The coverage of the two finals was really good. If only all year long they would haven been of this high quality. Ordinary league meetings seemed to run awfully slow, with too many and too Long breaks between teh racing. More often than not it dragged on and tended to bore me a bit. Nevertheless I hope that EUROSPORT will show us the Swedish Eliteserien again next year. And then perhaps the broadcasts will be of the same high quality all season long, as were the two finals of this year.