The Old Or The New?

[speedyguy]

If Saturdays GP was a one off World Final Hancock would be world champion, a worthy winner on the night but better than Pedersen!!

 

If the Gothenburg GP was a one off final Rune Holta would be world champion, would he have been a worthy title holder,

 

Replace those names with Szackiel, Muller, Havelock, was Szackiel a worthy champion, sure he was the best on that day, and in his case that day only. By no stretch of the imagination was Muller the best speedway rider in the world in 1983, neither was Havvy in 92.

 

How many world finals had the best 16 riders in them, hardly any. Collins wasn't there in 1977 when he was the best in the world, Olsen and Michanek in 1976 were among the top five in the world.

 

Qualification for a World Final was totally random and left a hell of a lot to chance and luck.

 

Excepting Hans Andersen in 2006 can anyone say the GP series to date did not contain the best 15 riders in the world.

 

A world champion is a competitor who has proved himself over an entire season, not just one (maybe lucky) day

 

 

Harsh words indeed on Egon Muller. He was one of the most professionally prepared riders speedway, grass and long-track racing has ever seen.

 

 

[Jeff.]

Harsh words indeed on Egon Muller. He was one of the most professionally prepared riders speedway, grass and long-track racing has ever seen.

 

Egon never devoted enough time to speedway to considered one of the greats, he was a great long and grass track racer who played at speedway

 

[martinmauger]

Egon never devoted enough time to speedway to considered one of the greats, he was a great long and grass track racer who played at speedway

Think Muller was persuaded to ride speedway by the German authorites, as they had very few actual speedway riders. Though as he showed briefly at Hull in 1976 and the numerous Briggs/Mauger World Tours he could been a very handy speedway rider indeed if he applied himself, he prefared Grass/Longtrack. While some of the temp tracks are far too rutted and slick tracks do cope better with rain, most riders simply want to jet out of the gate and disappear into the distance on a speedway bike set up perfectly to F1 standard. Listen when they are interviewd, they nearly always say a track is patchy and talk about set-ups rarely about actually racing this or that rider. As they are so used to smooth, slick tracks once there is a bit of dirt or slight imperfections in the surface many struggle to cope....

 

[MARK246]

Replace those names with Szackiel, Muller, Havelock, was Szackiel a worthy champion, sure he was the best on that day, and in his case that day only. By no stretch of the imagination was Muller the best speedway rider in the world in 1983, neither was Havvy in 92.

 

 

Szczakiel had more than one good day,he won the World Pairs Championship in 1971 with A. Wyglenda.

On that day he outscored Mauger,Briggs and Michanek, no mean feat in the 70's.

[speedyguy]

Szczakiel had more than one good day,he won the World Pairs Championship in 1971 with A. Wyglenda.

On that day he outscored Mauger,Briggs and Michanek, no mean feat in the 70's.

 

 

Sadly, Jerzy Szackiel fell a victim to unwarranted hype after his world championship victory. Completely unjustified 'mickey taking' all in the cause of a so-called 'good story' IMO.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

How many world finals had the best 16 riders in them, hardly any. Collins wasn't there in 1977 when he was the best in the world, Olsen and Michanek in 1976 were among the top five in the world.

 

PC was most certainly there in 1977!!!!

 

And contrary to what you imply, the World Final proved time and time again a consistent indicator of the best in the world; and did so for decades Check out how many rostrum positions went to riders who won the title on other occasions and you'll see in fact very little randomness in how the WFs panned out...

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

Lastly some heats ( Cardiff 2007 for example) seem to have been (badly) manipulated to financially produce the 'required result'. Sad that OUR sport has sunk to such depths to try and keep the series itself popular.

Rod Haynes.

 

Well done Rod..: at last someone brave enuff to say it as it is!!

What happened in Cardiff 2007 was, as you say, a disgrace.

 

All non-Speedway fans I've ever shown that Final heat of Cardiff 2007 to have said the same thing..: "why did he let him past to win"?

Only those who want to defend the indefensible or too taken up with the moment or perhaps embarrassed by the sheer clumsy obviousness of what Hancock did can say anything contrary.

Well over a year later and with the truly awful GPs losing credibility by each succeeding mind-numbingly boring round, it's time to stop the facade and face the facts..!!

 

If there was a one-off World Final, how often would it come to Britain? Once every four years, six years, eight years? Even less than that?

 

I reckon we'd be lucky to see it once every eight to ten years.

 

And this is the daftest argument of all..!!

As things stand we will never, that's N-E-V-E-R see a world Champion crowned in GB. That's coz our so-called GP Round is staged very early in the series...

 

[Deano]

All non-Speedway fans I've ever shown that Final heat of Cardiff 2007 to have said the same thing..: "why did he let him past to win"?

 

 

You've really lowered the tone of your argument now.

 

[AndyM]

PC was most certainly there in 1977!!!!

 

And contrary to what you imply, the World Final proved time and time again a consistent indicator of the best in the world; and did so for decades Check out how many rostrum positions went to riders who won the title on other occasions and you'll see in fact very little randomness in how the WFs panned out...

PC in 77 was if anything the greatest courage by a rider I've known - riding with a broken and gashed leg in torrential rain, but still coming second. He truly deserved that title. There was a hoodoo on WC runners up - PC didn't qualify in 78, and if you check back there were a whole series who didn't make it the year after.

[shazzybird]

Early results appear to be anti-GPs.

 

Trees must be on a weeks holiday and keeps voting

 

 

I'm sorry that some younger people who never saw a World Final think that the GPs are better.

 

I've been to one off finals and GPs and in all honesty I love speedway no matter what. Whichever way you all decide I hope they don't change back to the one off, although that was literally an on the night result, if they still had that system now would Mark Loram have ever become our World Champion quite possibly but we will never know now.

 

The way I see it there's more money involved now with sponsors, prize money etc and the GPs gives us 9 or 10 more meetings a year now to see a rider become World Champion, there have been times when long before the final meeting the title has been "decided" but that doesn't stop the thousands of fans turning up to cheer on their favourite or tuning into SKY sports to cheer from their armchair.

 

If you don't like the GPs simple don't watch them! When I go to Cardiff I don't give a monkeys left nut who's top of the table, I like to see who's going to win at the Millennium Stadium many riders have said it's the ultimate meeting every rider wants to win at Cardiff!

 

Possibly the best meeting in the GP calendar and the only orgasm I've never faked ...... just ask Bomber Harris

[barrow boy]

If Saturdays GP was a one off World Final Hancock would be world champion, a worthy winner on the night but better than Pedersen!!

 

 

Excepting Hans Andersen in 2006 can anyone say the GP series to date did not contain the best 15 riders in the world.

I think there are 2 or 3 in there this time that might be considered to be not as good as quite a few others.

[Humphrey Appleby]

Effectively the series is dead and buried now with the Italian and German (again) rounds now meaningless

 

There are simply too many rounds. There should be no more than 6-8 GPs per year.

 

A couple of years ago the general concensus of those in power was that it had become tired and so it was tinkered with in an attempt to revive it's appeal

 

Hardly. It was a cost-cutting exercise so that riders could be given a pay rise without the overall prize money having to go up.

 

The problems then might show the 'owners' in their true light as being far from professional in what they do.

 

I have long been of the belief that BSI only look good because the rest of speedway is so bad. However, I think the SGP ultimately has limited appeal beyond a few countries, and BSI found they got diminishing returns. Probably still a reasonable earner, but whether it can deliver the return that IMG expect, I have my doubts. One wonders if IMG really knew what they were buying into.

 

[speedyguy]

New poll for oldtimespeedway:

 

Enter your vote today! A new poll has been created for the oldtimespeedway group:

Was the original world championship formula (qualifying rounds to a one-off final) preferable to the present Grand Prix format. To vote, please visit the following web page:

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oldtimespeed...veys?id=2091179

 

 

 

Any ideas on how the Poll is likely to finish?

[Ray Rocket]

The funny thing is, speedway is mainly run as a team sport, but we have this separate competition in speedway for the 'best' individual rider. I do wonder why we put so much emphasis on this area of speedway anyway.

 

With so many countries now running speedway teams and I don't mean national teams, perhaps we should have competitions involving teams from other countries, similar to the way international competitions are run in football. After all, we don't have a competition for the best individual World Champion Footballer.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

The funny thing is, speedway is mainly run as a team sport, but we have this separate competition in speedway for the 'best' individual rider. I do wonder why we put so much emphasis on this area of speedway anyway.

 

With so many countries now running speedway teams and I don't mean national teams, perhaps we should have competitions involving teams from other countries, similar to the way international competitions are run in football. After all, we don't have a competition for the best individual World Champion Footballer.

 

I agree.

The 1973 International Series held in the UK was surely the BEST tournament in the history of the sport and the only true, proper World Cup tourny there's ever really been: the WTC being on the '4TT, one rider per team in each race and therefore no team riding', format...

 

As the world indiv championship has become, thanks to the hopeless GP format, an almost pointless event, efforts should be made to make the World (Team) Cup the top event and have a repeat (in ONE staging country each, say two years...) of the '73-style tournament..

 

A World Cup Final at Wembley..?? Now that's a tasty thought!!!

 

 

[Humphrey Appleby]

I do wonder why we put so much emphasis on this area of speedway anyway.

 

In the days of the old World Championship, it used to be an interesting adjunct to what was primarily a team sport, and I'm sure it probably also helped promote day-to-day racing. However, with so many individual events these days, people just seem to think it's the be-all and end-all of the sport, even though it actually rides roughshod over the parts of the sport that pay the real wages.

 

With so many countries now running speedway teams

 

I don't think it's much different from the past, except that other national leagues have gained greater prominence and prestige at the expense of the British leagues.

 

perhaps we should have competitions involving teams from other countries, similar to the way international competitions are run in football.

 

Speedway is set up different to other sports, and is almost unique in that its competitors ride for multiple teams in different countries. That makes a Champions' League type competition impractical, although there may be scope for a European Super League or similar.

 

[Jeff.]

New poll for oldtimespeedway:

 

Enter your vote today! A new poll has been created for the oldtimespeedway group:

Was the original world championship formula (qualifying rounds to a one-off final) preferable to the present Grand Prix format. To vote, please visit the following web page:

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oldtimespeed...veys?id=2091179

 

Incidentally the original formula was not strictly qualifying rounds to a one off final, with qualifying points counting on final night meaning that the winner of the final was not necessarily the champion (Bluey Wilkinson actually won the World Final in 1936 but Van Praag was World Champion.

 

 

[Jeff.]

I agree.

The 1973 International Series held in the UK was surely the BEST tournament in the history of the sport and the only true, proper World Cup tourny there's ever really been: the WTC being on the '4TT, one rider per team in each race and therefore no team riding', format...

 

 

A World Cup Final at Wembley..?? Now that's a tasty thought!!!

 

In truth speedway is, and always has been, an individual sport, the team element is largely contrived and team results are purely an accumulation of individual scores, no one team members performance is directly affected by the ability or otherwise of those making up his team.

 

 

 

[speedyguy]

In truth speedway is, and always has been, an individual sport, the team element is largely contrived and team results are purely an accumulation of individual scores, no one team members performance is directly affected by the ability or otherwise of those making up his team.

 

 

That's very profound. I tend to agree with you.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

In truth speedway is, and always has been, an individual sport, the team element is largely contrived and team results are purely an accumulation of individual scores, no one team members performance is directly affected by the ability or otherwise of those making up his team.

 

I don't thinjk that is correct at all..

Team Riding is a vital part of Speedway!

Also historians will tell you that the creation of teams and team riding in 1929 saved the sport from early extinction..

The public simply wouldn't then (and still won't now...) come in sufficient numbers just to see nothing but individual events.. After the initial exciretement of the first flush of Speedway in 1928 the public were indeed weary of seeing the same riders competing for a variety of similarily named individual titles.

Team and Leagues saved that from being the case.

 

Your assertion that Speedway is purely an individual sport is really light miles off the mark!!!