Swc Final, Vojens, 31/07/2010

[Grachan]

One question Mark. Who won heat 13 from gate 2?

[Silver Bee]

I've not seen a better ride than C.Harris in heat 20.

 

Erm, Iversen?

[Old Saint]

From heat 6 gate 2 produced points of

 

1

1

1

3 - brilliant gollob ride

0

0

3

2

1

1

 

so we use the joker in heat 17. A clever decision from our team manager

 

great effort from the team. I've not seen a better ride than C.Harris in heat 20.

 

Hindsight is a truly wonderful thing.

 

To be fair to all concerned, it was a gamble that may have paid off.

[Old Saint]

I am afraid that the British Speedway team seem to suffer the same affliction as the England football team - travel sickness. Perhaps it is some kind of psychological block that they have when travelling that results in them being unable to perform to their best anywhere except when in their home country?

[gary moore]

Well,it all sounds like it was a good meeting but we only got an hour of it!! Sky never changed the schedules on there listings so we didnt know it changed to Sky 1 after an hour.

Well done Sky,what a srap organisation you are!!!

Edited August 2, 2010 by gary moore

[Trees]

None of the Polish team race in Britain, so if anything they all have less competitive track time than most of the other riders featured in the final.

Not sure if you have noticed, but the Polish league teams have far fewer matches than British teams

So you're telling me they don't have 24 hour availability to their speedway only speedway tracks in Poland, club mechanics etc etc etc

Also, if the media are to be believed, the list of the highest paid riders in the World certainly includes riders well above several of the Polish team that raced in the SWC...

I wasn't really meaning the riders' personal wealth but the wealth of Polish speedway in general.

[Trees]

Hindsight is a truly wonderful thing.

 

To be fair to all concerned, it was a gamble that may have paid off.

And it would have paid off had Harris not changed his bike set up as he admitted after it!!!

[BWitcher]

Personally I think you should only represent the country of birth, until you have spent the majority of your life in another country. But in answer to above, not many sports but I think Greg Rusdeski represented Canada, France and then GB at tennis? At the moment the English cricket team has a player that has played for Ireland and now England.

 

You haven't looked very hard if you've not found other sports with countries using people born in other countries. And is that really all you could find in the England cricket team????

[BWitcher]

Let's look at this in real terms. GB scored 33 real points. Sweden also scored 33 real points. There, does that sound better.

 

Makes no difference.

 

GB would still have bottled it at the end, as they did.

 

Yet again, got into a medal positions (2 up on Sweden) and bottled it.

 

Totally wrong attitudes once again from the off.

 

"We're aiming for bronze". They should be aiming to win, not likely, but that should still be their aim.

[Mateusz]

So you're telling me they don't have 24 hour availability to their speedway only speedway tracks in Poland, club mechanics etc etc etc

But... each rider riding in a Polish club is allowed to practice at the track of his club if he wants to and asks for such opportunity. It's not opened for the Poles only. Usually club authorities are more than happy if their foreign riders come over one or two days before another league match and practise.

 

For example, last Friday a few Torun riders (including Sullivan who's obviously not Polish) were practicing along with the Bydgoszcz boys at the Bydgoszcz track (there was some concert the day after in Torun so they couldn't use their track).

 

Generally speaking, Polish tracks are open for riders who ride in Polish leagues, sometimes it doesn't even have to mean their home tracks. It's just a matter of good will and some effort from the riders ... However, if young riders like Woffinden or Ward seem to prefer hanging around night clubs in Poland and doing silly things in the pits instead of concentrating on their job / practising then what you expect?

 

Maybe that's just my opinion but most British riders have never seemed to be taking speedway as serious as most riders from other nations. Who (out of the riders) usually leads in drinking at SWC/SGP weekends? - the Brits, some Aussies etc. While Gollob hasn't drunk at all since he became a professional speedway rider ... Being professional means dedication, such as pumping LOTS of money into your equipment (engines, tuners etc.), giving up partying hard, practising a lot etc.

 

So, some of you can think up 600 cc engine theories here (as I have read such) but I think that the Polish riders are simply the most professional ones at the moment, I mean this season, especially Gollob and Hampel. Rickardsson has always been the example, but I think this season both Poles are not (much) below his level.

 

Time to accept some order in the speedway world has changed a bit. And I think that after yesterday's win I can say that.

Edited August 2, 2010 by Mateusz

[screm]

IMO you should always use the Joker as soon as you get the chance,to be fair the outside gates werent working and we only had 1 rider who was winning races.

[Daniel Smith]

Totally wrong attitudes once again from the off.

 

"We're aiming for bronze". They should be aiming to win, not likely, but that should still be their aim.

 

Agree. Why do we British always aim for a losers medal????? The only rider to say they're there to win was Harris and he had a stormer of a meeting.

[hyderd]

Team GB never stood any chance of winning but bronze was a relistic aim, having said that we still finnished where I expected them to finish.

As for the future, well I dont see much of a future for Team GB unless the BSPA starts to put our home grown youngsters higher up on there list of priorities. There are some exciting young lads out there but they do need help.

[Daniel Smith]

Rob chose the right time. I just don't understand people saying he made a mistake. Here's the thinking.

 

Harris was on the most form & most trusted rider we had yesterday. He was the only rider we could trust to get race wins. Harris was only ever going to be the rider to get the Joker ride.

 

There would be no logic at all in taking the Joker ride in your own programmed ride. He may have scored the 6 points but that would have meant that Stead would have rode in that heat and no doubt scored 0 himself as he was awful. Tactical thinking is simple (and quite a few just can't grasp it).

 

1, Use your strongest rider

2, Only use it in a Tac Sub ride

3, Replace the weakest rider

4, Use it in the strongest gate position

 

After all the above, THE TEAM made the right choice, Harris chose the wrong set up. Not blaming him as he didn't lose on purpose, s**t happens and all that.

[iris123]

But... each rider riding in a Polish club is allowed to practice at the track of his club if he wants to and asks for such opportunity. It's not opened for the Poles only. Usually club authorities are more than happy if their foreign riders come over one or two days before another league match and practise.

 

For example, last Friday a few Torun riders (including Sullivan who's obviously not Polish) were practicing along with the Bydgoszcz boys at the Bydgoszcz track (there was some concert the day after in Torun so they couldn't use their track).

 

Generally speaking, Polish tracks are open for riders who ride in Polish leagues, sometimes it doesn't even have to mean their home tracks. It's just a matter of good will and some effort from the riders ... However, if young riders like Woffinden or Ward seem to prefer hanging around night clubs in Poland and doing silly things in the pits instead of concentrating on their job / practising then what you expect?

 

Maybe that's just my opinion but most British riders have never seemed to be taking speedway as serious as most riders from other nations. Who (out of the riders) usually leads in drinking at SWC/SGP weekends? - the Brits, some Aussies etc. While Gollob hasn't drunk at all since he became a professional speedway rider ... Being professional means dedication, such as pumping LOTS of money into your equipment (engines, tuners etc.), giving up partying hard, practising a lot etc.

 

So, some of you can think up 600 cc engine theories here (as I have read such) but I think that the Polish riders are simply the most professional ones at the moment, I mean this season, especially Gollob and Hampel. Rickardsson has always been the example, but I think this season both Poles are not (much) below his level.

 

Time to accept some order in the speedway world has changed a bit. And I think that after yesterday's win I can say that.

Great post Mateusz.Why do Polish riders have more track time than Danish for instance?And i know of riders who don't want to attend the practice days in Poland.One was telling me that was one of the reasons he hardly rode there,because the teams always wanted him to attend a day or two before and get lots of practice in.He would rather be somewhere else.Poland are not the best team at the moment through luck.My tip before the meeting panned out.Maybe it would have been different with Nicki in,but he wasn't.And all this talk about Holta has been done to death and is nonsense anyway.People should take a look at the sporting world.They must forget how Zola Budd's citizenship was rushed through for one of the Olympics.Take a look at how many africans were running in the European Championships over the past few days.....

Edited August 2, 2010 by iris123

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

Team GB never stood any chance of winning but bronze was a relistic aim, having said that we still finnished where I expected them to finish.

 

Hmm, well the 'race for bronze' (sic) seemed to excite our Nige and Tatum...! To the exclusion of even bothering to mention the battle for the title itself!!!

[Grachan]

Rob chose the right time. I just don't understand people saying he made a mistake. Here's the thinking.

 

Harris was on the most form & most trusted rider we had yesterday. He was the only rider we could trust to get race wins. Harris was only ever going to be the rider to get the Joker ride.

 

There would be no logic at all in taking the Joker ride in your own programmed ride. He may have scored the 6 points but that would have meant that Stead would have rode in that heat and no doubt scored 0 himself as he was awful. Tactical thinking is simple (and quite a few just can't grasp it).

 

1, Use your strongest rider

2, Only use it in a Tac Sub ride

3, Replace the weakest rider

4, Use it in the strongest gate position

 

After all the above, THE TEAM made the right choice, Harris chose the wrong set up. Not blaming him as he didn't lose on purpose, s**t happens and all that.

 

Exactly right. Had Harris been the Joker in heat 13 we would have scored an extra 3 points, but tactically it would not have been the right move other than in retrospect.

 

The only case for using Harris in the earlier heat would be that maybe you should use the Joker early with a view to getting close enough not to need it again. Poland made that mistake, perhaps, but in the end it was irrelevant.

[Coventry_Bee]

Its always so easy after the event to say it was a mistake, My view on it is that there are no easy races to play the Joker. How many times have they not worked for any country ?

 

I think Rob did a great job and we should just accept we did the best with the riders we have. At least team GB played the joker, i wouldn't have liked to be the Polish team manager if they lost out by a point yesterday !! That was a schoolboy error

[Trees]

I'd agree that the Poles most certainly seem to have a very professional and serious attitude towards their speedway so much so that one or two couldn't deal with it

 

But the main thing I'm suggesting that goes for the Poles is the very good state of their speedway clubs. Therefore parts for bikes, tuning expertise, facilites for testing, personal training etc etc, everything that is important to give riders every opportunity to do well is in abundance in Poland from day 1 of a riders career.

 

Well done Team Poland!!

[Mark]

Some fair points made in reply. I've probably been unfair on the team manager as he did consult the team and it was a gamble that didnt pay off.

 

However still feel the joker should have been played by using our best gater (Lee R) from Gate 2.