Warsaw Gp Saturday 18th April

[Pinny]

Watched this from Aus at 3am this morning, thought the track was disgraceful. Complete farce

 

Cant imagine this gp being held again despite the contract.

[Shadders]

Just watching the recording.... I'm embarrassed for speedway and it's only up to heat six!!

[5 FURROW]

Oh dear, BSI have ballsed up, it is more serious than that though, they have completely messed up and are making a mockery of OUR SPORT!!

This World Championship needs to be given back to the speedway nations!!

Well unless you are totally thick and you must be I thought Poland was one of the speedway nations and as you won't attend the GP's how is making a mockery of our sport any more than the W⚓️s at the BSPA i suppose you think they are doing a grand job weird

[sommelier]

I do suspect that tonight will be a very significant turning-point for the sport at international level. To me, the sport's been trying to over-reach itself for many years, based on the ability to pull off meetings at Cardiff, although that's been a very close-run thing on a few occasions.

 

Trying to take the sport to a new stature and level of public awareness are of course noble ambitions but I do wonder if the sport simply has the resources to pull off these grandiose schemes often enough?

 

Is this a brown ale sport pretending it drinks champagne? (No Darcy Ward jokes please - there's a separate thread for that).

 

Just how far can speedway reach? Is it wiser to play it safe, run meetings on tracks that can allow a decent product to be offered to the world or do we keep aiming too high and falling on our noses? Yes, it does work sometimes but you cannot build a sport on just atmosphere and hype. You can fool some of the people etc. etc.

 

What we saw tonight was simply deplorable. It was like seeing a former love in the gutter, begging for fags or another drink. Jim Lawrence was not in control. The failure to exclude Troy Batchelor was questionable but the inability to either see the problem with the starting gate or why riders were pulling-up, or simply to choose to plough on regardless was simply unacceptable.

 

The Grand Prix tries to provide us with the best riders, the best stadia and best racing. Is Jim Lawrence one of the best referees? If so, we need an urgent training programme! His on-screen body language during the early problems was worrying. It did not look like someone in control, and I've been in the company of enough referees over the years to have a clue about this.

 

Regarding the role of the Race Director, Phil Morris faced three crises in his first meeting - practice, starting gate and then the track break-up. The fact that the meeting failed after 12 heats shows that it was not a happy start. But his predecessor in the role Tony Olsson was clearly there, as seen on TV and I presume that his predecessor Ole Olsen was also present, given that he was in charge of the track installation. Surely either or both were on hand to advise?

 

Just how many times will we suffer these fiascos and just how many more times will we hear that lessons have been learnt and that the problem can't happen again?

 

It has. It has many times. It's been happening for years, even back at Wembley, such as 1975. Speedway cocks up, eventually. Gelsenkirchen, Riga, Ullevi. The list goes on.

 

I am certain that BSI's rivals One Sport will be delighted to see them fail so spectacularly in the most prominent stadium in Poland. Is this a turning-point in speedway politics that sees Poland trying to take control of the sport it already financially owns? (Ask any rider fined by a Polish club for getting injured riding for a team outside the country, or at least threatened regarding that latter point)

 

It's time for the sport at ALL levels to live within its means, to stop thinking that a few flashy risks will bring riches. They won't. Solid development will, putting good value for money meetings on at sustainable venues. Let people grow to love an all-action sport rather than use smoke and mirrors to convince people that crap is gold-plated.

 

It's time to focus on the product, the racing, not the wrapping. Then, once the product is strong enough, organisationally and financially then take it to those higher levels. We can see some great racing at GPs. Not enough though.

 

Any fool can reach for the stars and fall. To get there you have to do more than reach, you have to build on solid foundations.

 

In Britain, in a week of generally fine spring weather we have staged how many meetings at out highest level? Two. Just two. This is to accommodate tonight's hubris in Poland.

 

That's a high price to pay and once again the British public have been mugged as much as those fools who think that flying to Poland's going to automatically give them great speedway.

 

Still, the atmosphere was great I suppose and the beer was cheap., Who needs more?

 

So far this year for various reasons, notably health I've no been able to get to any live speedway. Fortunately that's changing and I can hopefully start getting to some league matches, ideally in the PL or NL. I'll leave the rest of you to be dazzled by the shiny shiny.......

 

Speedway cannot afford to self-destruct like this yet again. Sadly it will. It mustn't.

 

(P.S. - "So, this time in English please Tomasz.....")

By far the most intelligent post i have EVER read

[IanT]

Well well, where do we start with this latest comedy of errors? Currently in my Warsaw hotel room after witnessing last nights farcical events. Last year I went to Tampere and Riga, so maybe I'm a jinx? Watch out Krsko I'm on my way there later this year!

 

Last night though really did reach new heights of incompetence. The whole event has been completely mismanaged from the outset. Ordering tickets was an ordeal so the warning signs were there.

 

The stadium is fantastic, the location ideal, in a speedway mad country. Great ingredients for a what should be a showcase event to kick off the GP series. There is, however, something called planning and management to these, or indeed any, sporting event. Without them you have chaos and that is what we were unfortunate enough to witness last night.

 

So now on to the finger pointing, of which there will be plenty over the next few weeks. As is often the case no-one is quite sure where the blame lies, Race director? BSI? IMG Group? Track curator? Riders? bloke selling the hot dogs? BSI are the promoters and organisers so should take collective responsibility. Lets blame Phil Morris (welcome to the GP Phil!!) but who appointed him? and what was his remit for the event? plenty of job titles thrown around but not too much information on job description, and who has a say over his continued involvement? same goes for the track curator, who exactly is the top dog here? Who picks the team? Who said "this is how we;re going to build the track"? who ordered and manufactured the starting gate? who was responsible for testing it? Questions, questions for which I doubt there will be answers. Plenty of comments saying "heads will roll" and maybe they will, but we're not looking for scapegoats here, we are looking for a collective responsibility from event organisers to stand up and say "we messed up". After Riga last year nothing was really said. A short statement saying "can't be helped, rider safety, let's move on... blah blah blah" that doesn't compensate or explain anything, and we get a very similar one from last nights event. Time to come clean people and stop hiding. If you;re going to put an event on in front of 55,000 people and you get it so terribly wrong then at least have the courtesy to explain yourself...I won't be holding my breath though.

 

I fully advocate the venture into big cities and stadia, speedway should be showcased in this environment and last nights attendance showed there is support. But if you cannot get the most basic of requirements right then you will always struggle. I wonder if too much focus goes into promoting the event rather than actually managing it? Number one on the list has to be the track. Can a good racing circuit be produced? if the answer to that question is no then you have to give serious thought as to whether the location is suitable. Fireworks, music, glamorous girls, etc etc are all well and good, but we don't' pay our ticket prices for that. We pay to watch the worlds best rider race. If you cannot produce a stage for that you have no event, irrespective of the environment surrounding it.

 

Let's hope this really is the wake up call needed, making such a mess on such a big night might just open a few eyes...

Edited April 19, 2015 by IanT

[iris123]

Anyone know who the very proffessional" sounding "!!FIM JURY are who mad the call to call the meeting off.or was it someone else who called the meeting off?!! im confused!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seemed to be a lot of English guys in the mix and one welsh bloke......think Graham Brodie was seen walking across the centre with Jim Lawrence,Tony Steele was in the mix and then Phil Morris also and surely Armando must have been at such an important meeting?

[Halifaxtiger]

 

That there have been worse tracks is hardly a recommendation. Maybe the riders have just got sick of the amateurish organisation.

 

As usual, Humph, I think you might well have a point.

 

its all very well to blame the riders, but isn't it reasonable to expect that in our sports showpiece event that the standard of preparation and organisation would be correspondingly high ? Don't paying spectators have a right to believe that the money they have paid out will be well spent, given the level of the meeting ?

 

It could well be that faced with starting on the green light and also having to ride on a dreadful track was a straw too far for those competing. Who knows, there might have been other issues.

 

I should say I haven't seen any of the meeting at all. I was elsewhere last night and watched an appalling crash in which I suspect (but hope otherwise) that a rider was seriously injured.

 

I can't help but think that those who blame the riders would be the first to start pointing fingers at the organisers had there been a similar accident. Maybe I am affected by what I saw yesterday but rider safety is paramount. They risk their necks enough on well prepared tracks without having to do so on those that are anything but.

 

Simply saying 'I have seen worse' is, to me, pretty cheap and offers an excuse to those who are responsible for this shambles when, in fact, there is none.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Halifaxtiger

[iris123]

Don't normally go on about the commentators and through most of it they did a good job and these were difficult circumstances but Kelv + Nige did come out with 2 blunders last night

 

First I thought "Let's have a look at the highlights....er,the story of the night so far"!!!!!!

 

And at the end "A fitting tribute to a great rider"......personally I think Gollob deserved far better,but we await the Hancock farewell with baited breath

 

Like I said yesterday morning,just how intelligent is it to hold practice on a track that was causing problems anyway?What does it bring other than what we already know from previous experience......break up the track and give them little time to repair the damage!!!!!

Edited April 19, 2015 by iris123

[Haza]

First I want to say I feel for anyone who attended this GP anyone who spent there hard earned cash on a farce such as this was very short change those can only hope some sort of compensation will be sorted by IMG/BSI not sure what the small print is on a meeting being called off in such away .

Secondly Ole Olsen has had enough chances on getting these one off tracks right and failed time and time again time for him to go I think also with so many of the GP on one off tracks time to revert back to alternative stadiums ie Horsen get that back to Vojens .

And I'm sorry but I think Phil Morris needs to go as well.

Time to quit glamour city's and get back to proper race tracks after all for most of us it's the racing we go for and sadly there wasn't any of that last night - can't see things getting much better for the next GP another poor track with follow the leader racing .

Let's not forget the scale of last nights farce the biggest crowd at a speedway meeting I'd guess since Wembly 1981 world wide TV coverage as well how many of us will go to work in the Monday morning and try to explain this one to none speedway fans ? Olsen and Morris must go ASAP

Edited April 19, 2015 by Haza

[screm]

Just watching it now from last night, Jim Lawrence is having a shocker, and its obvious that Glasgow have sold their starting gates to the good folk at Warsaw.

[Humphrey Appleby]

I fully advocate the venture into big cities and stadia, speedway should be showcased in this environment and last nights attendance showed there is support. But if you cannot get the most basic of requirements right then you will always struggle. I wonder if too much focus goes into promoting the event rather than actually managing it? Number one on the list has to be the track. Can a good racing circuit be produced? if the answer to that question is no then you have to give serious thought as to whether the location is suitable. Fireworks, music, glamorous girls, etc etc are all well and good, but we don't' pay our ticket prices for that. We pay to watch the worlds best rider race. If you cannot produce a stage for that you have no event, irrespective of the environment surrounding it.

Although I'm a big critic of BSI, I can to some degree have some sympathy about the track problems. Trying to lay a track in a very limited time, is a big logistical challenge and even on permanent tracks, getting the preparation right is not an exact science.

 

Failure of the starting gate though, with seemingly no backup, is to me utterly inexcusable. Tracks round the country manage to have working starting gates week-after-week.

 

Riga was also down to BSI negligence as that was a semi-permanent track with plenty of time to iron out problems. And it also sounds like excuses are already being made about Tampere, despite all the 'lessons learned' spiel last year.

 

People keep saying how BSI have raised the bar and what a good show they put on. Well last night was the evidence of what the reality is, and it'll be interesting to see how this one gets explained away in the Spar.

 

Let's hope this really is the wake up call needed, making such a mess on such a big night might just open a few eyes...

What happened in Warsaw is far more damaging than Riga, Tampere, Gelsenkirchen and Ullevi. This was in the capital of the most important speedway nation, no doubt in front of cynical big city hacks who otherwise would never take any interest in a provincial working class sport.

 

One wonders how many more lessons can be learned. The organisers of the series are not up to the job, and now that competition has emerged for the rights, the FIM needs to looking at re-tendering - if only to act as the wake-up call for the complacency at BSI.

[Panthers89]

and I ask again, whats the point in a temp track in a country where there are big stadiums and brilliant tracks? Not seen it and wont waste my time.

[sommelier]

i was very surprised how Holder struggled on a bumpy, rutted, inconsistent track. He rides one far worse than that every week at Wimbourne Road!

[Gavan]

Watched this from Aus at 3am this morning, thought the track was disgraceful. Complete farce

Cant imagine this gp being held again despite the contract.

the track wasn't great but that isn't the issue. We know these tracks cut up but the riders behaved like pansies. Get out there and wind the throttle on. Granted the green light situation was a leveller off the starts and gave the riders more cause to moan. Seems like the 'old guard' spat their dummy's out and the weak race directors listened. What's going to happen if Cardiff cuts up like it often does? Dangerous precedent been set tonight I feel. Now if we get rutty or let's say wet tracks the riders will be wanting it called off. Don't blame the track blame the riders and the officials

[Humphrey Appleby]

Secondly Ole Olsen has had enough chances on getting these one off tracks right and failed time and time again time for him to go

It would be interesting to get to the bottom of where the shale actually came from, and where it's kept before it gets to the venue. No doubt the explanation will be that it got wet during the crossing on the ghost ship..

[salty]

Although I'm a big critic of BSI, I can to some degree have some sympathy about the track problems. Trying to lay a track in a very limited time, is a big logistical challenge and even on permanent tracks, getting the preparation right is not an exact science.

 

Failure of the starting gate though, with seemingly no backup, is to me utterly inexcusable. Tracks round the country manage to have working starting gates week-after-week.

 

Riga was also down to BSI negligence as that was a semi-permanent track with plenty of time to iron out problems. And it also sounds like excuses are already being made about Tampere, despite all the 'lessons learned' spiel last year.

 

People keep saying how BSI have raised the bar and what a good show they put on. Well last night was the evidence of what the reality is, and it'll be interesting to see how this one gets explained away in the Spar.

 

 

What happened in Warsaw is far more damaging than Riga, Tampere, Gelsenkirchen and Ullevi. This was in the capital of the most important speedway nation, no doubt in front of cynical big city hacks who otherwise would never take any interest in a provincial working class sport.

 

One wonders how many more lessons can be learned. The organisers of the series are not up to the job, and now that competition has emerged for the rights, the FIM needs to looking at re-tendering - if only to act as the wake-up call for the complacency at BSI.

Good post. Last night's shambles joins the other cities you mention in the GP "Hall of Shame".

This latest fiasco does more damage because of the nature of the event and the crowd that had been attracted to the capital city.

Is there any talk of recompense for the 50,000 who had to endure last night's rip off?

I guess the argument is they saw 12 heats, but I'd be surprised if any of that massive crowd went away anything but disgusted.

[Halifaxtiger]

the track wasn't great but that isn't the issue. We know these tracks cut up but the riders behaved like pansies. Get out there and wind the throttle on. Granted the green light situation was a leveller off the starts and gave the riders more cause to moan. Seems like the 'old guard' spat their dummy's out and the weak race directors listened. What's going to happen if Cardiff cuts up like it often does? Dangerous precedent been set tonight I feel. Now if we get rutty or let's say wet tracks the riders will be wanting it called off. Don't blame the track blame the riders and the officials

 

Of course its the issue - or at least part of it. The situation was created by those that organised the meeting.

 

I repeat : is it so unreasonable that at the top level of the sport both riders and fans can expect a decent racing surface and a starting gate that works ?

 

The very fact that this has never happened before speaks for itself.

 

On a finaI note, I think the very last description I would give for speedway riders is 'pansies'.

[iris123]

 

I guess the argument is they saw 12 heats, but I'd be surprised if any of that massive crowd went away anything but disgusted.

Actually,like I mentioned last night it was surprising how the Poles carried on enjoying themselves throughout.Was there any problems after the meeting was called off? I haven't seen anything.What I have seen are comments from a couple of friends from Germany who were there and then of course friends of these friends and they are along the lines of "bugger the meeting,you can see meetings every weekend,but the atmosphere was fantastic....." Then again I have also seen a statement from one of the British tour firms and they are disgusted and calling for heads to roll.I guess the more people drank and had a good time the less upset about the whole show they were

[STARRGAZER1]

Arriving at stadium entrance with English flag told cannot take it in.No foreign flags allowed only Polish flags allowed to be displayed!Were refusing to allow me into stadium.After arguments managed to shove flag in bag and push through.Obviously cannot show support for foreign riders.Try stopping Poles taking their flags into Cardiff .

[Trees]

Well unless you are totally thick and you must be I thought Poland was one of the speedway nations and as you won't attend the GP's how is making a mockery of our sport any more than the W⚓️s at the BSPA i suppose you think they are doing a grand job weird

Don't even try to defend this one!!