Jeff.

Thats what he did after the Rovers Return then is it. I thought he worked on a cruise ship

A quote in the book taken from an interview with George Hunter in 1998 published in 5-1 magazine seems to add weight to Ian's argument. George says "if only Peter had beaten me out of the gate that night" That would only be possible if he was actually lined up at the gate with Hunter.

The book also states Willie Templeton was not in the race, he had been relaced by another rider whose name escapes me

It most certainly was a decider, and probably the best race ever seen at Hyde Road. The Aces had already lost at Tilehurst and Reading really looked to have the KO cup in the bag but Belle Vue managed to turn it round and force a draw on aggregate. It was now late into the season and Reading had no home track (Tilehurst was due to be demolished)so it was decided to settle the tie in a one off match race. Collins with a broken left hand, which meant mounting the clutch lever on the throttle side and operating both with his right hand, would face Michanek, who due to having trouble with his own bike would come out on team mate Bernie Leigh's bike. 16 passes in all with Collins' shading it on the line.

It was Gothenburg 1984 and that race pretty much won it for Erik and lost it for Hans

Kevin it used to be that the two minute warning was for a specific rider, i.e. the rider in red is on two minutes, if during that time another rider went back to the pits he would be put on two minutes and so on. Two minutes could last five or six minutes.

Chris was a major casualty of the old rider control system. Although fairly successful in his early Halifax days, they finished Chris by taking him away from Hyde Road, the same way they did for Soren Sjosten later on

Agreed on 77 & 79 but 1972 from memory was one of Ivans better years and that despite breaking both wrists part way through the season.

It did almost cost Mike Lohmann his life but he did in fact make a comback from this in 1981. He raced through to almost the end of the season, although he was a pale shadow of the rider he used to be, before quitting to make way for the returning Peter Collins.

Ivan's record is 6 "world titles", Rickardsson currently has 5 "world titles" to his name. Should Rickarddson win another he will equal Ivan, 2 more and he will better it. The format is totally irrelevent for the purpose of deciding who was world champion the most times, it isn't a matter of personal opinion, it is fact laid out in black and white. As for who would have won more given different formats now that is a matter of opinion, I would guess Ivan would have maybe won a couple more early to mid seventies under a GP format but then again I doubt he would have won in 1977 or 1979 under a GP format. Six is probably a fair reflection of how he would probably have faired under any format.

Kevin have you not considered that from the early eighties to the late nineties speedway was in a serious steep decline. Do you not think that left unchecked that decline would have continued until there was no competitive speedway left in this country. It is remarkable that we are in a position to even be anywhere near levels of the late eighties let alone bettering them. There are people on this very forum who admit to the TV coverage either re kindling or starting their interest in the sport. On the point of BSI using the riding assets of the Elite League that isn't 100% true. Rickardsson only came back to the Elite League to assist his GP chances, so did Gollob, I get the feeling Ryan Sullivan wouldn't be here if he didn't feel it helped his GP chances. You could argue that these riders wouldn't be here in the first place if it was not for the GP

Kevin Wembley 1981 had 92,000 fans, Bradford 1985 had 37,000 fans, Bradford 1990 had 25,000 fans, Bradford GP 1997 had sub 10,000 fans. Do you notice a trend there. Of course we are still nowhere near the hey days of Wembley, and probably never will be again, but the decline has been halted and a significant improvement made. Do you really think if things had carried on as they were this would have happened

Kevin even before BSI the FIM got the riders for World Championship events for free and even if the rewards for GPs are not of Formula 1 proportions they are still better than the rewards for winning the old World Final. You say that without Sky and BSI things would be much the same anyway. Obviously it is total conjecture but I doubt that very much, In fact I would question whether there would be any form of top class speedway at all. I know of many new fans who have been attracted, or had their interest re-kindled, by speedway on TV.

Ever since I can remember most fans were saying how much fairer it would be to have a World Championship decided on a GP basis rather than a one off like existed at the time. Now we have the fairest possible method of deciding a Champion and people are still not happy. Star Lady how do you suggest that the qualifying events and the actual competition take place over the same season? It is not possible to race a season of qualifying stages for a tournament that started 6 months ago. I am interested in which Grand Prix Champion you feel was unjust, or as you put it "not the best rider of the year". Of course one off's always produced a genuine Champ, Szackiel, Muller, Havelock to name 3. Have the people who criticise BSI and Sky ever stopped to think where speedway might be today without them, 6 or 7 years ago speedway was looking dead and buried but now the slide seems to have been halted and even a marginal improvement in support seems to have occured, I suppose this is just coincidence.

I would say that the whole Pre-Main Event is meaningless in the current format. Ultimately though, it doesn't matter what format you use if the event is well promoted, and the racing sufficiently exciting. The 'boring' 16-heat, 20-heat format still managed to attract 100,000 fans to past World Finals, which is three times the number of the best attended GP to date! Kevin as Falcace pointed out there are no meaningless races in a GP, every rider in every race can still win the meeting, however unlikely. I attended many one off finals over the years and in all of them no more than 5 or 6 riders were ever likely to win, and if you were remembering them as they really were you would remember that a typical one off final contained more no hopers than any GP thanks to the 5 continental final qualifiers, and yes I am aware that on occassions these riders have won. An easy to understand format is vital if you want to attract casual fans, they maybe don't want, or dont know how, to fill in a programme which made the old format hard to follow. But Kevin the real proof is in the fact that the old one off finals had fallen to the extent that only a few thousand were watching them in stadiums such as Pocking or Vojens, Yes they still appealed to the hardcore fans but no casual observers whereas the GP format, like it or not, does

Spot on Grachan. I loved the old World Finals but how many meaningless races were in a one off final. By heat 8 at least half the field could not win and by interval it was usually only 2, maybe 3 who still had a chance. Also the format was unforgiving, 1 fall or engine failure and your out of it. In a GP every rider in every race can still win the meeting which to me is why it works so well. This format is the future for world championships and I for one would not like to revert back to the one off final format.

No lokiss it wasn't first bend bunching. First bend bunching is 2 or more riders going into the bend fighting for the same piece of track, invariably there isn't room and 1 or more falls. When the rider off gate 1 ends up right out at the fence at that same 1st corner and runs right into the path of another that is something completely different. Hans Nielsen was a master of riding first bends like that but he could do it safely and very rarely brought anyone down, Pedersen on the other hand can't and his "hard" 1st bends often result in someone falling and getting hurt.

43 Rickard Hellsen & Roger Johns

I believe 49 is Rolf Gramstad

Even if their was going to be 2 German GPs I can't imagine it being sensible for them to be one after the other. Are you sure that it is not that the actual order has not yet been finalised and that the first one is either Germany/Poland and then the second at the other venue

He is late and he was great but he didnt make a World Final in the years he broke his leg. In 1984 he made it to the Inter Continental Final, where he was eliminated. He actually won the British Final that year not long after the accident that broke the leg.

He was third in another final as well Norbold, not sure of the year but I believe it was 1968 if memory serves. Both finals in Sweden. Soren even competed over here during the ban on Swedes (by virtue of having a British wife).

Christer Sjosten did indeed die as a result of a track crash in Aussie, the Christer to who I think you refer to as dying from a brain haemorrhage was Christer Lofquist. Soren most certainly did race for Belle Vue, very successfully from the early sixties to 1975 when the old rider control moved him onto Birmingham where he stayed for 1 season before his final British season at Wolves in 1977. After racing Sorens life took a turn for the worse and he eventually died in the late nineties little more than a street beggar in his native Sweden. I believe he would only have been early sixties as well

Absolutely agree team man, I am all for encouraging junior riders. Please don't get the impression I am anti conference league, nothing could be further from the truth. I am just stating the fact that anyones pay is largely governed by their worth to their employer and how much employing them is likely to make that employer. In the case of junior riders the answer is probably very little. As these riders get better they may get a Premier League place where hopefully more people are willing to pay to watch them race and they then start to be more suitably rewarded.

No not at all. Rickardsson and all the top Elite League riders are in theory earning money for their employers, the same as any employee would and can reasonably command the going rate for the job. A conference rider doesn't yet fall into that category. Compare players at Manchester United getting 60K a week, that does not entitle Sunday League players to earn money from the game.