lucifer sam

Seb, I agree, I need to know how many points I thrashed Jacques by. All the best Rob

It seems, like Gorican (which I thought was great), Torun is a GP venue in waiting. All the best Rob

I've decided - one way or another, I'm going back to Assen next season. All the best Rob

But Gollob won two OTHER GPs. All the best Rob

Surely the only lesson learnt is a simple one: Don't employ Ole Olsen All the best Rob

One cock up? ONE? How about the 2003 Scandinavian GP? How about the dangerous tracks for this year's Swedish and British GPs? How about the fact that good tracks such as Bydgoszcz and Krsko are stripped of their shale and the tracks are ruined. Olsen is a menace and he should go. As for the 1939 World Final, well maybe Adolf Hitler should be sacked as well, I suggest you find a spirit guide and contact him to tell him. All the best Rob

What has the 1975 World Final got to do with the price of eggs - it was bloody ages ago. We are talking about Gelsenkirchen this year - not some World Final in the year dot. And, in any case, I don't believe a single World Final from 1936 to 1994 was called off for ANY reason. Someone has to be held responsible for what happened in Gelsenkirchen. And where does the buck stop? In terms of track prep, it's the GP Race Director. That is Ole Olsen. And that's who should be given the boot. All the best Rob

With all respect, we know you're pretty well off and indeed well done for investing money back into speedway. But surely it is the ordinary supporters who were hit by the Gelsenkirchen fiasco. £400-£500 is a LOT of money to most people. There needs to be some sort of action taken against what happened in Gelsenkirchen. The buck has to stop somewhere. I would suggest it's with the GP Race Director and therefore Olsen must lose his job. All the best Rob

Technology snob. All the best Rob

That was bloody clever how it also updated printed magazines. All the best Rob

Steve, stop stirring things and causing more trouble for the team you claim to support. All the best Rob

Mostly because the majority of Parsloes's posts are regurgitating the same old mistruths regarding the Oxford v Wimbledon match in 2005, when, in fact, the OSMA were robbed of the bonus point by dodgy refereeing decisions by Ronnie Allan All the best Rob

OK, here's a few more: * What does he make of the GP series? * Did he knock off Ove Fundin in the run-off for the 1957 World Championship? * Would did he think about representing Great Britain in the World Team Cup - would he preferred to be riding for New Zealand? * Would he carried out his threat to quit British racing had handicap racing not been abolished in mid-1964? * Did he think fellow New Zealander Ronnie Moore was too much of a gentleman on the track? * Does Briggo think he was robbed of the 1964 BBC Sports Personality Of The Year award? * His comeback in New Zealand in 1984 at the age of 49 onboard a "revolutionary" bike created a fair splash of publicity. Why does he think speedway gets so few column inches in the press these days? All the best Rob

But nobody was "given" a place (bar the odd home representative) - they had to qualify. And anyone who qualified was good enough to win it - as the plenty of examples I've given already have proven. All the best Rob

Glad to see that despite Parsloes's protests to move the thread elsehwere (ironic the number of times he's complained when threads have been moved ), that it's stayed where it is and a STRA thread has got a few more reads than usual. All the best Rob

There were 49 World Finals, so surely that should be 48-1 not 1,000,000-1 In fact, if you take into account the highly surprising (at the time) wins for Freddie Williams in 1950 and Peter Craven in 1955, it actually works out to odds of around 15-1 that a rank outsider could win a World Final. On the other hand, in the GP series, that has only been one even mildly surprising winner (Mark Loram in 2000) and even that one wasn't a shock for those who studied Loram's performances as an almost permanent wildcard in 1999 (fifth overall despite missing the first round). It's almost impossible for an outsider to win the World Final. If anyone bar Pedersen or Crump wins in 2009, I'll buy a hat and then eat it. All the best Rob

I see you're even coming up with examples yourself now. Yes, who would have ever thought that Gert Handberg would have finished third in the 1992 World Final. It's yet further proof that any of the 16 riders in a World Final could win ahd why these meetings were so entertaining. And, of course, Kai Niemi came pretty close in 1985 as well - he was joint leader after four rides apiece. All the best Rob

Yet both were probably similar standard riders to Jerzy Szczakiel who did win. On the right day on the right track, ANYBODY could win the World Final. For instance, Troy Butler was awesome around the old Coventry circuit (i.e before the track alterations in 1998). On ocassions when track conditions suited him, he outscored Hans Nielsen around there. Had the 1989 World Final been held at Coventry on a day when track conditions were right, Troy Butler could have been World Champion. And that was the beauty of the World Final - most the time one of favourites still won (for instance, Gundersen & Nielsen won all the finals between 1984 & 1989), but you never knew quite waht was going to happen and whether you could end up with another Szczakiel as champion. It had unpredictability. All the best Rob

Yes it was possible for all 16 to win (well with the exception of Henny Kroeze in 1987 ). Jerzy Szczakiel scored a great big fat blob in the 1971 final. He went into the 1973 World Final as the fifth favourite Pole (out of 5) and probably the 15/16th favourite of the whole field. And he won. Jerzy Rembas was the rank outsider in 1978 and got into a run-off for third place. A young Tony Rickardsson only qualified in 1991 due to the misfortune of other riders getting injured, yet finished second. Peter Craven had only just avoided finishing 16th in 1954, but won in 1955. Everyone thought Jack Young had done a grand job in qualifying in 1951 as a second division rider, but no-one outside of Edinburgh would have tipped him to win it. He did. Viktor Kutnetsov in looked bloody fast in 1986 and ended up with double figures. Les Collins only got through to one World Final. Every thought his Inter-Continental win in 1982 was a fluke, second place in the World Final showed it wasn't. The unfancied Jack Biggs came so close to winning in 1951. He never came remotely close again. How many more examples do you want? All the best Rob

Jeff, interesting you mention Jerzy Rembas, who was only 2 points away from being World Champion in 1978, therefore completely negating the point of your post. And for mentioning Egon Muller, I assume you have a complete mental block as regards to 1983, or 1979 for that matter, when Zenon Plech finished second. I'll say it again - ANYONE out of the 16 riders could win in a World Final. Rank outsiders DID win sometimes. Look at a very young Peter Craven in 1955, Freddie Williams in 1950 and Jerzy Szczakiel in 1973 as prime examples. All the best Rob

How the Golden Greats series came about. I remember going to the first of these at Coventry in 1988 and it was a hugely enjoyable day. Also the subsequent Hall Of Fame at Donnington. All the best Rob

Of course, if it was a one-off World Final, all 16 riders could win. Unfortunately, we've got an increasingly dull GP series, which will only be between two riders - the ones with 1 & 2 on their backs. All the best Rob

Bryn, you'll be lucky now that Parsloes has got his soapbox out. All the best Rob

Parsloes, I thought were you are against the moving of topics from one section to another. All the best Rob

I think it's shocking that Jarek Hampel is not in the GP next year. One of the arguments from the pro-GP lobby is that it contains all the best riders in the world, whereas under the old system, a few big names would be eliminated before the big day itself. However, Hampel is in my mind amonsgt the best 8 riders in the world (along with the riders who finished 1st to 7th this year). So next season the GP series is missing a key rider. Who is the better rider - Jarek Hampel or Chris Harris? If a poll was conducted, I'd wouldn't be surprised if 95% plus said Hampel. All the best Rob