Grachan

It wasn't the sprint race that cost Kurtz the title. It was having a poor round in Prague.

I'm sure I could fathom it out if I bothered to look into it. I just haven't. Presumably it's always been like that anyway with regards to semi final qualification etc., even going back to the A, B, C, D final. For example, today Doyle and Michelsen both scored 10, but in that old system one would have been in the A final and one would have been in the B final. For me, I was never that keen on the race points counting as GP points. I felt it made the final less interesting.

Lindgren didn't get an "extra point". He finished 11th. The rider who finishes 11th gets 6 points. You get points for the position you finished in the meeting. It's not hard. If a football team wins 6-0 do they get 6 points? No. they get 3. If a tennis player wins 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 do they win 16-12? No. they win 2-1. Scoring systems are what they are and that is what you ride/play to. Personally, I like the A, B, C, D final that they used to have. But at least this way the winner of the final gets the most points - which didn't always happen when it was based on race points. With regards to countback, I've no idea how it works. I'm assuming Lindgren finished above Kvech because he beat him when they raced? Is that correct? Or is it because he had a race win? However it is worked out, Lindgren finished the meeting ahead of Kvech so gets the points for that position. Easy peasy.

I don't agree actually. The last 3 races are like the championship rounds in boxing. They sort the men from the boys. Fricke constantly looks like one of the fastest riders on show but can't do it in the big ones.

For me, speedway's real decline began when they introduced such things at double point Tactical rides and 39 point points limits. I'm not sure when that was now. Maybe around 2000-ish? These, for me, caused a big reaction, and I remember going the following season and being surprised at how much crowds had gone down as a result. I don't think the sport ever really recovered from these "adjustments". The big irony with these, if course, is that it was Ipswich (the team that everyone now sees as the powerhouse strong side) that were very influential in such things being brought in because they were struggling with weak sides. Nowadays I struggle to get through a meeting on the TV. I'm sure that losing my team (Swindon) has a part to play in this, but I really do look at the sport on a Monday night and wonder why it is so boring. Is it just my own interest dropping off, or has it genuinely become that? I grew up loving speedway, and going to Swindon, Oxford and Reading where huge crowds would bait each other and the atmosphere would thrive on it. I guess I blinked and the World changed.

Why blame the fact that she is female for a decision like that? Do you think that every female watching that thought that Thomsen was at fault?

Bewley is so frustrating. If he could find consistency he could really challenge for the title - but I guess everyone already knows that.

A lot of empty seats.

To be fair, it's actually not easy to only show 2 riders when they are racing 3 abreast.

Yes. I was thinking the same thing. How many times have they cut to show a single rider when there's a good race going on that you're trying to follow?

I agree, which is part of the frustration of it all.

Plus Poland, Chechia, Latvia. Go Egon!

Is he though? How can you really tell when there is nobody else who seems capable of properly challenging him and genuinely putting him under pressure? Nobody else has the consistency. World number 2 Robert Lambert, for example, ended up with 3 points last night. If you look through history, the great champions always had someone pushing them. Funding, Briggs, Olsen and Mauger all had each other. Nielsen and Gundersen had each other. Rickardsson had Pedersen, Crump, Hancock, Adams etc. Since Zmarzlik started winning World Championships, the one rider to properly challenge him was Artem Laguta - and Laguta won and was promptly removed from the series. Zmarzlik's most consistent challenger is probably Lindgren, who is not really a genuine rival. Someone needs to step up to the plate to make this interesting. Can Kurtz do that? I'm not convinced. Holder maybe? It's a shame Bartosz can't be transported into another era so we could really see how good he is. To be honest, if you could do that and transport someone like Egon Muller into the modern series, my guess is you'd see Muller winning multiple World Championships and being hailed as a contender for the greatest of all time.

Interesting to see a Wales v England women's 6 Nations rugby match on tv at the moment. The crowd looks a lot smaller than for the speedway gps, yet it is on at the Millenium Stadium and shown on Prime time BBC.

That's a shame. It was a very good website, and one I often looked at to find average etc.

Reading's supposed new stadium was touted as being a "racino" - a speedway track and casino combined.

I remember going to a Reading Press and Practice day and they still only had half a team signed. They won the league that year. (Memory is a bit hazy, but I think they signed Todd Wiltshire between then and the opening fixture).

I love the bit where he picks up so much speed going into the bend that you hear the crowd let out a gasp.

I went to Amsterdam and it wasn't good. The problem wasn't the fact that it was 2 days or the quality of the racing, it was that - apart from the British section on bend 2 - the stadium was practically empty. Cardiff, sadly, was starting to go the same way so was bound to get dropped soon. This is yet another sign of the decline of the sport in this country. If the GP is going to be held at a league track, though, Belle Vue is the best choice. The GP will continue to decline, at least until all the World's best riders are allowed to ride in it. It's pretty meaningless at the moment. I can also say that, as one of many people who no longer have a home track to support, interest in the sport itself gradually fades away as the years pass. Time is a great healer.

I think this is sad, but inevitable. Last time I went to Cardiff the crowd was shocking, and with teams shutting down and the leagues shrinking, so the number of people going will also shrink. Cardiff never sold out, but it used to be pretty full until recently. Now there were more empty seats than occupied ones. GP now back to when it was held at places like Coventry and Hackney. Next thing we'll be back to one- off World Finals in Poland. Only positive about this is the Belle Vue track, but I'm not even convinced they can fill the stadium for 2 nights.

I can actually remember that match really well. It was one of the few matches that I enjoyed so much that I bought the video. This is from it. Andrew Silver in red.

Have to agree on Andrew Silver. Probably my favourite ever rider, although I sometimes think he could have been even better if he'd changed his style. I sometimes wonder if he rode in that manner deliberately because it looked so damn cool! He was a sensation for a few years at Swindon. To see him deliberately miss the gate on lane 4 and then cut under everyone on the first turn was one of the best things I've ever seen. Another one at Swindon was Shawn McConnell. Possibly a degree of style over substance but well worth it! He tended to finish second or third in races. I once saw him about to win a race and pull a massive celebration wheelie that was so big he got passed. He came second.

Is Kildemand any good these days? Who's next? Charlie Gjedde?

I wondered that myself so looked at the profile. It has no blue tick, but it's been there since 2016. Also he is followed by, amongst others, Darcy Ward, Jason Crump, Natilie Quirk and Chris Holder and Kelvin Tatum. It's also the only Dan Bewley account on X. I think it's genuine.

Let's all hope that those noisy Oxford fans keep quiet and "Dangerous" Vinnie Foord doesn't try too hard or interact with anyone. That way there will be no atmosphere so it will be a good advert for the sport.