MARK246

You put 3 and Emil as an after thought, after two GPs it was obvious Doyle wasn't a threat

You can eliminate Dudek and Hancock as they are team monster riders

So less than at a one off final. Plus the benefit of ten meetings to do it, .....yawn ... no wonder it was boring to watch this year

So who where the main rivals to Woffinden this year ? The only real challenge early in the season was Lindgren, and a late push from Zmarzlik. You knew the other monster riders won't challenge so that's 3 out of the 14 gone. Who was there in the GPs to beat

You can add Germany to that list according to a previous poster

What I would say is I'm glad I watched speedway when I did from 1967, there is little to excite anyone now in the sport. The Word Champion rides at my home club next season, another reason not to go. 30 pages and I still wouldnt cross the road to watch him.

Has Polish Ekstraliga dropped its three league ruling, with Robert Lambert already signed in Sweden and Poland, he can only choose the UK or Germany as his home league if the rule is still in place.

I was watching the 82 world final, they had right arm covers to match helmet colours at the meeting. It was in the era when colours came off quite regularly. I wonder what today's riders would do, organisers covering their sponsors logos, mass walkout

Malc Holloway had a set black and gold with tassels

So is the new owner already in place or is Matt Ford staying

And Hancock

Without personal bias, there are no riders who would make the top 8.

Other than Greg Hancock the top 8 are in the 15 riders i listed. It is possible that if Hancock rode in the top league in Poland he would of been in the list. So Madsen in and Hancock out, what the list does give is a greater strength in depth. Which imo would produce better, closer racing

The GPs do not contain the top riders though, that is the problem, the GPs only has the riders who BSI think will make them the most money. Speedway is always individual, team racing is only 7 riders totals added together. Woffinden beat the riders that were in the series, if the best 15 riders were in the series the outcome may have been different.

The Elitseren I could agree, they could be taken into account, but the GP's, Son and SEC are too selective to show true form

It is an opinion, but speedway is a statistical sport and the way to judge the best is using known numbers.

That's a fair point so 15th would be Holder. Sorry Holder is an error, Jepsen Jensen is the next in line

These are the top 15 riders in the world at the moment. Zmarzlik, Madsen, Pedersen(N), Laguta, Woffinden, Sayfutdinov, Kasprzak, Janowski, Dudek(P), Lindgren(F), Vaculik, Doyle, Pawlicki(Piotr), Drabik(M), Kolodziej. If you need a reason it's because they are the top 15 in the toughest league

You could well be right just had a quick Google, 1979 the first production GM

I thought Egon Muller was one of the first riders to use GM in 83, it was the only one in the world final that year.

The problem is not with the quality of the riders but the logistics of riding at that level throughout a season. Biggest part of riding GP's is not the racing but the support team you need, it's why the top ten is so stagnant, they have the infrastructure to maintain their places.

The Poole sale sounds like Matt Ford trying to bluff the BSPA into keeping a top league, so his rider "assets" retain some value. We heard it all from him in 2009, when he was going to close the track because the club was bottom of the league. Support from the south coast faithful was fickle then, as always.

I think that's a tip who the new owner is, knowledgeable about speedway. It has to be Starman, he's been trained up all year by Ford. That's how he knew so much about Ford's plans, plus he's the only person daft enough to buy a speedway team.

If it was profitable and sustainably profitable why sell. Only an accountant could tell if it's a viable concern, terrace talk means nothing

Are you Matt Ford's accountant or is the racing that boring at Wimbourne road you count heads every meeting. Where is the proof to back up the 1,500 "paying" customers