SPEEDY69

Doyle at least made a final this year, something Fricke never looked like doing.

Wasn't solely the atmosphere at all though. As I said, the production/running of the event for fans at the stadium was very poor. Forgot to mention GB - Bewley didn't ride like I expected him to but Lambert was ok and Brennan gave it a go.

Woffinden is lucky here I think, given his performance the last series he was in. Doyle has not had many wildcards previously and did show he can make the finals of GPs even though he was badly injured this season. Fricke is always going to be around the 'not just made the top 6/7/8' I think. The format and any qualification changes may bring some interest otherwise I think there'll be little drama on show.

Well, we got back to the UK last night after attending this. The flight and hotel we stayed in were great. Torun was a nice little place and we had a good look around on the Sunday. The disappointment was the event itself - no, not the racing as we enjoyed that. It's always better to be there live and the stadium was great from a viewing and noise perspective. We thought the crowd would have been bigger, given this is meant to be the place that many think all other speedway nations should look up to but it was only half full. The 'fanzone' was tiny with little in the way of interesting content. We were not offered any programmes or race sheets and didn't see any for sale anywhere. Navigating to our seats was not straightforward either. The centre green announcer was obviously partisan for Poland and he tried his best to get the Poles involved, which worked but we couldn't hear the english announcements/interviews. The catering was awful but that didn't matter as we'd eaten beforehand. Overall, it was the organisation, signposting and management of spectators which was poor and nowhere near as polished/professional as Cardiff for example and even Belle Vue. We do these events much better in the UK. For the meeting itself there were some good battles, Freddie got owned by Zmarzlik in one race and cost the Swedes points as he didn't look for his partner once I don't think. Zmarzlik fell on purpose at the start of one race to get a re-run and iDudek did the same in the semi - Denmark were really unfortunate not to make the final. Looking in slow-motion does not show what we all saw in the stadium. As for the final it was great to see Australia do a number on the Poles and whilst I'm no fan of Holder, Kurtz again proved he's the best rider in the world this year. So, will we go back to Poland for another event - probably not. Prices are cheap and Eastern Europe makes for good breaks/holidays but we won't be basing any future visit around speedway.

He had a winning head to head record over him in the GP series.

Deserved to be world champion, no doubt in my mind

Where was madsen supposed to go or do differently there. Poor refs ref.

Zmarlik went down very easily there

It's wet on back straight inside line. Rest of track is fine

Awful. We're here and 20min? s to go, about 1/10th full. I thought this was the pinnacle place of speedway? Foxhall would have a bigger crowd!

7 teams and only 6 benches, typical speedway!

Mitch could have trapped Persson on the inside there, fantastic team riding, not!

Exactly, can't always go by averages in one league! Would he have done it the following year, no but it created a lot of interest. Most GPs now are snore-fests with little unpredictability.

Will be getting an early night tonight for the 6.15am flight tomorrow. I see rain is forecast to start about 6pm, just my luck🙄 Still, it may not be much/affect the track but am looking forwards to a busier stadium!

I enjoyed the meeting last night - great to see how the riders got on, particularly from the lesser nations - Levishin was giving it a go, Bednar and Partnitski created interest, even the Argentinians got better but such a shame there was no crowd at all - if it was held in one of those smaller countries then maybe it would have been better?

where?

As I said, if we just use averages then there's no need for any competition. Kurtz would have made a good wildcard in 2024 but wasn't picked. Being good enough on your or anyone's assessment has never been the main criteria for competing for the world title - some riders have a good year and then never again, the current system awards future places on past performance so there are no surprise packets anymore and I think the championship is worse for it.

I don't get the obsession with Ekstraliga averages - Kolodziej and Ben Cook for example have been near the top in those lists but neither have made it into the GPs on a regular basis. Kurtz wasn't even riding in that league when he qualified via the GP challenge in 2024 was he? No-one knows how a rider may perform, if it was all about averages and assessments why have a competition at all? It'd just be nice to see some new battles, not just the same old troupe.

Thanks, forecast for during the event rather than before Hope it changes for the better before Sat!

What's the weather protection for the track like at Torun? I see rain is forecast for Saturday evening, don't want a totally wasted trip!

Didn't Crump get a wildcard for being u21 champ or did I dream that? Vaculik, hmm I think rather than didn't bother he failed to get through the GP Challenge and has had about 6 wildcards now, so is he still trying to make the grade😉

Paying riders £12k per meeting doesn't help either.

The man who rivals Harris for wildcards, I really hope not.

I agree with the overall view. Regarding Fricke vs Doyle, only one of them showed they can still challenge and made it to the GP final this year, and it wasn't Fricke.

What, with all those weeks between March and September, surely it could never have been fitted in 🤪