IainB

GB Speedway Team mission statement: The mission is simple; to make Great Britain the most successful and most professional National Speedway Team on the planet. Great Britain Speedway Team has developed and launched it’s Tracking Success Programme incorporating sports science experts, rider coaches, tactical analysts and branding specialists, the Great Britain Speedway Team consists of people that are not only experts in their chosen field but also people who are passionate about elevating GB to the very top. Great Britain race every year in the FIM Team World Championship - Monster Energy FIM Speedway of Nations and also the FIM U21 Team World Championship. In addition to these events Great Britain also take part in the Global Challenge Series against other leading Nations - the highest level of International Test Match Speedway staged between full 7 rider teams. Despite stunning early success, when Great Britain came within one race of winning the Gold medal at the 2018 Monster Energy FIM Speedway of Nations tournament, there is a long-term vision in place with the goal of Great Britain regularly producing elite level athletes who can compete on the World stage. In addition to its senior team, Great Britain have now implemented a solid foundation with the launch of the GB Academy, embracing young athletes from the age of 15 and steering them through their development and into the Under 21 squad, there is now a very clear pathway for British Speedway athletes to reach the very top.

I'm sure Kemp does show the right attitude and like I've said before I wish him well in his future my real issue is with the management and selection of riders. Having a good attitude and deserving a place in a world final are 2 completely different things, Adam Roynon had/has a superb attitude you'd never select him for a world final slot though. Surely you blood riders with potential in test matches, there was a world championship medal up for grabs at the SoN and with the likelihood of the track being weather affected always being high. My general point is how long do you keep sacrificing what you've currently got in the hope of what you might get? Sounds a bit like somebody with a scratch card addiction when I put it like that () GB Speedway needs to make it's mind up on what its mission is. Is it to develop a crop of young riders to fill up team places in league speedway or is it to develop all riders no matter what their age. Also if a rider doesn't buy in to the GB Speedway mission should this exclude them from selection?

That's fair enough we all have differing opinions, I really hope the lad goes on to have a great future though

But Kemp is only an 8 point rider I'm the NL, to throw him into a world cup final imo is ridiculous, if he'd cleaned up in the NL and shown real promise in the CL then maybe, but for me he's shown nothing special to warrant a SoN team place. The place for the likes of Kemp is to be riding in test matches yet this year to my knowledge GB speedway haven't ridden in any. There has been a Poland vs Russia test match take place, no coincidence that they are the top 2 speedway nations

The thing is though "the kids" are probably living at home with their parents and I suspect are being funded by them. The older riders more likely than not have families to support and have probably had to make hard financial choices this year, that does not mean they have no ambition

... And who's to say that Drew Kemp won't turn out to be another Josh Auty or Ben Howe or Savalas Clouting etc. etc. (to pick a few riders names at random, there are many many more). If you're a late bloomer or want to do things your own way there's no place for you under the current regime. One wonders whether Tai Woffinden would be on the GB Speedway scrap heap during his younger "Party" days? Drew Kemp should be learning his Speedway in the lower leagues and on the continent, serving his time before being given a shot in a World Final, I really hope he goes on to prove me wrong.

I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure... but you would have thought at least one of them would have jumped at the chance

It must be difficult for one of the GB managers to preach ambition to his riders when he hid away in the 2nd division for so long coining it in. Under the current regime it seems that if you're not turning up to the boot camps to learn how to juggle and eat veggie burgers and salad then you're out of the selection picture, there are so many riders I would have picked ahead of (the German ) Kemp: either Worrall, Danny King, Richard Lawson (British No 2), Lewis Kerr, Josh Bates, Ellis Perks, Kyle Howarth, Connor Mountain, Tom Bacon... for whatever reason they all seem to be out of the reckoning as far as GB Speedway is concerned. Bewley was rightly in the U21 spot but to select Kemp in the No 2 slot was just a waste, why have all of the above been jettisoned and the bank has been bet on Kemp who only has a 3.58 average in the CL and 8.14 in the NL

Similar to when the British came to the rescue of the Poles when a certain Austrian gentleman came busting through their borders, you help your friends out in their hour of need... it's what you do

Time for the likes of Steve Worrall to step up to the plate then, but he'll never get the chance with the current regime, just like Kemp, if he's not world class in 3 years time he'll be on the scrap heap and the next future world champion will be given the experience

Steve Worrall (as are many others) is better than Kemp, whether he was asked I don't know, but Kemp could easily be in the same position as Steve Worrall in a few years. Test Matches are for sorting the wheat from the chaff not world championship events

I think I heard Lemon also say (on the talk speedway podcast) that Chris had also declined to ride. What the hell Lemon was doing using Lidsey against the Poles beats me, he's made some very strange decisions in the past also... I wonder if his performance is ever scrutinised by MA To be fair if any of the other countries lost a rider of the calibre of Woffinden they would be in severe trouble, GB have been very unlucky for the last couple of years in losing him for the SoN. Sweden without Lindgren, Denmark without Madsen, Aussie without Doyle, Russia without one of their top 2 etc IMO you should ALWAYS pick your strongest team for a world cup event, there are many riders that should have been picked ahead of Kemp, no disrespect to him. If you constantly pick youngsters "to give them experience" then you ignore the riders that you were giving that experience to a few years back, you then get into a catch 22 situation of giving riders the experience and then jettisoning them after they've had the experience. Steve Worrall was "given the experience" a few years back and now he's totally forgotten about. At least he didn't mention Greg Hancock tonight... which must be a first Absolutely spot on False dawn, can't disagree with a word you say. This was a world championship event for god's sake and to treat it like an end of season fixture filler that just needed to be run to get it over and done with was a complete disgrace and devalued an already massively devalued competition even further, if that's the way they're going to treat it they should just scrap the competition. The track was a disgrace and the meeting should have been called off before the start. The bumps in the track have been there for weeks as seen in Lublin's final Ekstraliga fixtures and nothing was done to smooth them out. To hold this even in October was complete madness, why on earth it wasn't planned for the summer months like it always has been is a mystery

I don't think Rory has ridden in it for a while

"He looks like a flying hairpin"... you don't get Speedway commentary like that anymore, brilliant!

Not a criticism, just an observation... very Aussie centric line-up at the moment. I'm surprised it's not starting a 7am to attract the Aussie streaming market

It depends what you define as team riding, often commentators on TV say a rider is team riding if they see them so much as glance at their team partner... This for me is not team riding

I'd be very surprised if we saw anything like this in the SON... Especially as Pawlicki isn't even riding!

It was actually heat 14 but for those that haven't seen it:

Anything seems to go in Poland though, I think it was Pawlicki that nearly put Zmarzlik through the fence In one race and they were having a big love in down the back straight after the race... In this country they'd be rolling around on the track fighting each other

I'll agree with you that generally it is, l don't know if you saw the Polish play off final but there were 2 clear examples of how to and how not to team ride. When Gorzow were struggling to build up any kind of lead during their home leg I remember 1 race where Wozniak was struggling to hold 2nd place while Zmarlik was blasting around 30 yards clear at the front and Wozniak really could have done with his help. Then the best bit of team riding I've seen in years was Pawlicki doing all he could to get Pludra home for the win in the final race of the season, was a joy to watch.

I thought in many cases it left a lot to be desired and wasn't based on what the track needed but more like we always water the track after 4 heats and we always put this amount of water on so this is the way it will always be. The first semi was often ruined due to over watering

As it seems that Russia are now the emerging nation in Speedway, perhaps it's time for a return to the 4/5 rider format?

It was great to see Bewley finally showing the form that we've seen him show around the NSS. His kit is quite obviously not up to scratch for Polish League racing and it must have been a bit of an eye opener for him (and me). How he goes about funding the investment that is obviously needed in his equipment is the big question as it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Maybe GB Speedway should step in and invest in the machinery he needs, like they did with with Steve Worrall & Danny King (I think) a few years back, although I don't think it was under the GB Speedway badge back then. Maybe they could offer some kind of loan scheme, like a student loan, and the rider starts paying back their loan when they have reached a certain standard (earnings) in the Polish League.

The problem with holding a "Final" race in any pairs competition, whatever the scoring format, is there's big potential for a massive anti-climax. A tape touch, 2nd warning, e/f from the start, any type of exclusion and all of the tension is lost. It amazes me that the authorities still want to paly roulette with this system for pairs meetings as it's bitten them on the bum a few tomes in the past

Any news on a line-up yet?