Bavarian

I miss the variety and the big events of the 1970's speedway. Most of all the Test matches, the winter tours of Australia by the British Lions and other.

THE match race championship, which was rewarded with the golden helmet, used to be one of the highest prizes to be won in British speedway. That's why it was such a draw with the crowd in the old days. I think it all began in 1930, and was initially designed as the world match race championship, but since the ACU would not sanction such an ambitious title, it reverted to become the British match race championship. This used to be a contest similar to how boxing world championships are decided, the champ defends his title against a nominated challenger. Speedway and Boxing have some similarities, not least that both sports/businesses are run by promoters. The old system of monthly challenges for the Golden Helmet Match Race Championship was far better than the inflated version they had in the sixties or seventies, when the holder had to defend the helmet and weekly challenges, somtimes within 24 hours after he had won it. This was simply too much and people, as well as the media, got an overdose and did no longer give it as much attention as it used to get when there were only monthly challenges. In the old days, the media had time to preview and build up such events and people used to know who would be challenging for the helmet, as it was raced for monthly on a home-and-away basis at the holder and challenger's track, with a neutral track decider if neccessary. And to make it lucrative for the riders, there was money for the holder as long as he kept it, even through the winter. For example, in 1949 at Birmingham, some 44,000 people turned up to see the match between Graham Warren and Jack Parker. It was promoted just like a big boxing bout. Those were the days.

I hope the lad is not seriously injured, the crash looked bad enough. When was this race/crash?

I agree with You 100%, this is when it all went the wrong way for speedway, which used to be the only affordable from of motorsport for the ordinary people. Until the early 1970's it used to be so easy to start out and try YOur luck in speedway. You had to purchase a half decent bike, went to a training school and got going. Nowadays it is moto cross has this advantage, while speedway has become an obscure minority phenomen, that is hardly known by anyone outside the sport.

Not sure about India, but China has seen speedway at a very early stage, in 1930, when an Australian touring troupe spent several weeks of riding the dirt-track speedways of Shanghai and Hong Kong. They were racing in Singapore and Manila, too. Only a few years ago, the Chinese toyed with the idea of introducing ice racing and a test meeting (with no ordinary spectators allowed) was held on a 400m ice oval at Harbin, involving several Russian riders as well as Swedish riders Svensson and Serenius. It does not seem to have made the wished for impression, though, since nothing was heard about it after that. While speedway, afaik, has yet to make its entry into India, they do have a lively dirt-track championship going since about 3 years. It is flat track racing on mx bikes. http://www.merinews.com/article/dirt-racin...ia/125562.shtml There are even videos of these meetings on Youtube. The potential for 'real' Speedway is undoubtedly there, but the moto cross bikes are much easier to get for the riders in a country like India. Speedway can't compepte with that. It is the same phenomen with other third world countries in Africa or South America. There is dirt-track motorcycle racing in many of them, but they do their racing on ordinary mx bikes. Speedway would have to bring out a very, very, basic and very, very cheap bike, which would have to be reliably and easy to maintain for the riders in these parts of the world to take it up. I have read somewhere on the forum that there is a Chinese bike engine that is used in youth speedway, even in England. Maybe that would be a first step in the right directon. The people in Malaysia, who tried to introduce speedway there some three years ago, also used their own make of would-be speedway bikes with smaller capacity engines (115cc). It worked and it was fun, and in a few years it could become a real boom sport spreading all over the world. This would be a ground roots level introduction of the sport, with the top riders eventually going on to the senior 500cc racing division in the professional leagues and world championships. This would be the desperately needed boost that speedway needs to reach global acceptance. The FIM should do something about it, but sadly there is nobody with a vision.

One thing strikes me. Even then in 1973, the British promoters seem to have organised this spectacular tournament on their own! It was not the FIM, who then as now runs the official world team cup, but the British promoters seem to have set this tournament rolling on their own initiative. Unfortunately the promoters did not seem to realize the golden opportunity to build on this. If they had done so, we could now have a mega successful speedway world cup tournament a la rugby world cup every four years. The Rugby Union world cup tournament was a late starter, too, but look what they have achieved since that inaugural tournament of 1987. Speedway could have had the same since 1973, bud sadly did not take adavantage of a golden opportunity. What a shame for speedway!

Click here http://de.justin.tv/wocky_speedway#r=ud6Nhac~

Racing gets better now, and Woffie was putting up a fight in heat 6, to no avail for his Wolves team, though. It was a 5-1 for the Pirates!

Now Scotty got one in heat 5. He's in good form so far, but Woffie is again very poor tonight!

And its quite dull so far, Shields' back flip being the highlight, since there has not been a single overtake int eh first four heats.

But the official Stadium website clearly states that this attendance record of 120,000 was for a UEFA Cup football match between Gornik Zabrze and Austria Vienna on 18 September 1963. I seem to remember having read that the attendances at the 1973, 1976 and 1979 world finals were all below or near the 100,000 mark. The figures of 120 or 130 thousand as given in the British press at the time were much exaggerated, but the real numbers of close to a hundred thousand people attending a speedway meeting are still very impressive.

Poland v Australia Doesn't any of our Polish friends here on the BSF know about this meeting?

There will be no speedway in Poland this Sunday. Everything is cancelled!

Yes and no, but it goes a bit deeper. The whole concept of the guys who introduced speedway there, as a relative cheap form of motorcycle sports to Malaysia, was to get the many "wild" motocyclists, who often do their racing on public streets, on to a proper racetrack and offer them a "legal" route to fame and fortune. This concept was funded by the government, the ministry for youth and sports, for a one year trial period. Only one speedway track was built, but if successful, the intention was to built them in all regions of the country, and even make speedway a professional sport in Malaysia. The intention was that wealthy owners would have their race teams, buy the machines and employ riders and mechanics, and take their share of the prize money. Of the recruited local would-be speedway riders (whom Ivan Mauger tested and selected for further education as speedway riders), most were rather poor lads from underpriviledged families, who were hanging out on the streets. Boys who had been doing stunts and other dangerous riding on their little motorbikes, and often causing accidents and trouble on the public roads. Non of them would have been able to afford setting themselves up with a speedwaybike, equipment and mechanics, as well as the logistics behind that all. The Speedway Promotion decided to use their own brand of motorbikes and converted some Malaysian built scooter bikes (115cc?) that looked a bit strange on a speedway track and were nowhere near as fast and powerful as a 500cc Jawa, but it was a start. From a spectator's view, though, this wasn't very spectacular racing, and the spectator attendances soon dwindled. At the end of the first season their best riders were trained on the 500cc Jawas, and the Cup of Malaysia International Speedway meeting, won by Ricky Wells, was the first (and only) "real" speedway meeting held there. Despite contrary reports, it was not a good advert for the sport. The setting was quite o.k, but the racing quite boring to watch, with most of the Malaysian riders struggling to stay on board of their unfamiliar Jawas, and the four international riders ranging from Ricky Wells and Andy Aldridge, to a Japanese guy who once rode speedway in California and a veteran Englishman, who had ridden in Div.2 in the late 1970's. It was always doomed to fail miserably, and with many important politicians invited to watch this event, that was it. The verdict was, that it was a waste of money, but was not becoming a popular sport to watch. Attendances were indeed very poor. The ministery withdrew its support and that was it for Malaysian Speedway. It could not finance itself and without the government funds, it could not continue. However, one has to bear in mind that the initial plan was for Malaysian Speedway to reach an international level within three to five years, and at the end of this period to have a world championship Grand Prix in Southeast Asia. Now, I feel that despite the failure to establish the sport on a domestic level, there may still be enough interest left in Malaysia to go for the big thing, and that's nothing else but a Malaysian Speedway Grand Prix! One thing is for certain, there are many many rich people in Malaysia, and motorsports is very popular there, as can be seen with the Formula 1 GP and Motorcylce roadracing. It would be peanuts for a company like Petronas to sponsor a Malaysian Speedway Grand Prix. Therfore I would not rule out the possibility of a SGP happening, and I guess the people there would be interested. They want the highest level of this sport, but not some wobblers who struggle round the track out in a field.

It has been a huge step for the German clubs to accept the team versus team formula last year. Clubs were used to stage only one Bundesliga meeting under the old 4-team-system for over 30 years, and most of the speedway clubs in Germany usually don't stage much more than one, two or three meetings per year. They were not prepared to run a season with much more home meetings. Last year with five teams it was easy to agree to a round robin tournament with each club have two home and two away meetings. This year with six teams it wouldn't work anymore, as some would have three home and two away meetings, and other the other way round. So it was agreed to keep last year's system with 2H/2A and make a draw as to who meets home, away or not at all. The only pity was that the luck of teh draw resulted in close local rivals Gustrow and Stralsund not being drawn together. They still have a chance to meet in the play-off finals, though. And this then on a home-and-away basis over two legs.

How come Oslo is no longer in division one, but has TWO teams in division 2 ???? I thought it was five teams (incl Oslo) in Div1 and seven in Div 2. Which way is it right?

The north - yes, but the west - no ! There are some speedway tracks in the south-west (Herxheim, Berghaupten) and again in the north-west (Neuenknick, Dohren, Moorwinkelsdamm and Norden), and Diedenbergen (near Frankfurt) is located in the middle, but none of these tracks is exactly in the western part of Germany. The last speedway track in the west region closed in the early 1960's, that was Oberhausen. And there isn't any long-track or grass track activity left in the region either, the last one I know of was a grass-track at Holzwickede near Dortmund, until teh late 1980's. Again as with speedway there are long/grass venues further to the norhtwest (closest are Bielefeld, Osnabruck, Harsewinkel?) the southwest (closest are Zweibrucken, Herxheim and Altrip) and and in the central region (Hessen) of Germany, but none in the west (Rhine/Ruhr region).

And Pardubice AGAIN has the 'final' final round, just as this year!

The German Gp was held at a totally wrong location for speedway, Gelsenkirchen is not in an area of Germany were speedway is a well known sport. They could just as well have staged it in Rome or Madrid. The west of Germany is a no-go area for speedway. Munich (South), Berlin (East) or Hamburg (North) would all have had a much better chance to attract a big crowd for a German SGP. Or use one of the permanet tracks like Landshut, which has already hosted a Gp in the 1990's. The German clubs/promoters are not prepared to take the risk, though, and pay BSI/IMG/FIM so much money just to get a GP.

Just by chance I came across the video of the fatal accident of Swede Savage, one of the late 1960's US revival speedway riders from California. Here's the link to the youtube video and here is a tribute website with some pics of his days as a speedway rider Swede Savage Tribute

Big meetings coming up in New Zealand this month are the NZ Solo Grand Prix at Gisborne (Feb.20) and the New Zealand solo championship final at Oreti Park (Feb.27)

Solos made a sensational comback at Western Springs last night (13th). This was the first time in many, many, many years that the solo bikes returned to New Zealands No.1 speedway venue! Signs of things to come? SGP? Western Springs?

Did she ever ride in Germany?

That's it, it would not make sense to send all the riders and stuff down there for just one GP meeting. Therefore it should be at least three GP's (two in Aussie and one in NZ), Ideally there could be another one as a stop over in Singapur/Malaysia or in the Arab Emirates, but that is a bit pie in the sky at the moment, since the Malaysia Speedway venture sadly failed after just one season there. Still they could be interested to stage one big meeting (SGP) in a big stadium there, who knows! It was teh malaysians original intention to have a GP there in a few years time. They certainly have the money do do it!

I thought they had already announced a re-staging date (Febr. 27?) for the washed out Test at Hamilton's Kihikihi Speedway? As far as I know, the foreign riders will also ride int he NZ Grand Prix and the New Zealand Championship Final this month.