SON finals Togliatti Sat/Sun July 20th/21st Live on BT Sport

[Sings4Speedway]

The thing the Aussies have over the Brits is that failure isn't an option. Travelling around the world to the UK or Poland they have no choice other than to make it or head home, brutal but its true, there is no safety net whereas in the UK riders get chance after chance to find out if they are average or not. Aussies heading to Europe must be confident in their abilities and confident that they will make it. There are obviously those who don't and they either end up heading home (or loitering in the UK 2nd tier) but those who remain are then in with a genuine chance of pushing on to world level.  

[mikebv]

47 minutes ago, Fromafar said:

The Aussies have a few more than GB.Fricke,Holder, Kurtz,Lindsay, Stewart,Gilmore,Thompson,Cook could all step up a notch IMO.They are already a step ahead.

With Poland being their 'entry point' more and more..

Maybe its visa related? Or maybe its seen to be the quicker way forward to get them up to a higher level quicker. (Sink or Swim)..

Lidsey's comments were quite telling when he said he learnt on the "big, well prepared tracks in Poland" which gave him a good grounding..

We need our young lads out there sharing the same experiences..

No coincidence for me that both Tai and Robert Lambert spent a lot of their formative years not riding and learning in Britain. No comfort zone for them..

Moved them on several notches I reckon..

[Happy Hunter]

On 7/20/2019 at 4:48 PM, Steve Shovlar said:

Poor track. Like Leicester with grandstands. Not great at all.

Just for the record Leicester's track is 53 metres shorter than the one in Russia. I have also seen better racing at Beaumont Park!

[acef]

45 minutes ago, mikebv said:

With Poland being their 'entry point' more and more..

Maybe its visa related? Or maybe its seen to be the quicker way forward to get them up to a higher level quicker. (Sink or Swim)..

Lidsey's comments were quite telling when he said he learnt on the "big, well prepared tracks in Poland" which gave him a good grounding..

We need our young lads out there sharing the same experiences..

No coincidence for me that both Tai and Robert Lambert spent a lot of their formative years not riding and learning in Britain. No comfort zone for them..

Moved them on several notches I reckon..

I completely agree but they won’t take the risk of not being paid or being dropped after a poor performance because that is the risk.

In this country we just don’t have enough raw talent. By that I mean kids who just step on a speedway bike and hit the ground running. Dan is the closest we have to that and actually did very well in Poland in his first season, but that’s actually a case in point given it seems that relationship has soured for whatever reason. The British riders can comfortably stay and make a living in the British league with no aspirations to be successful internationally because they don’t need to, and it’s too much risk.

I would actually forget Poland for our kids and focus on getting into Sweden first where there is more stability to provide a stepping stone. The poles are very good at looking after their own.

The other solution is to strengthen the British league with international riders but we just can’t afford to do that. It’s the devil and the deep blue sea for the sport here.

We have some decent young kids coming through now but they will learn nothing riding this league and will just get caught up in the merry go round.

[Midland Red]

18 hours ago, PHILIPRISING said:

WASN'T their best night, I agree, but commentating from a studio thousands of miles away will always be an issue.

Whereabouts is “thousands of miles away” then, Philip????

[OveFundinFan]

Problem that arises with GB youngsters getting all this experience in Poland or Sweden is they will earn better money there, will have a yearning for the competitive racing and not bother racing in the UK. This has been known to happen before and not too long ago and the uproar was deafening. 

[chunky]

2 hours ago, iainb said:

1) I don't think we should be beating everyone because we are British, I see the quality of a fit Lambert and Cook and I think they should be beating the likes of Germany and challenging the non elite riders in the SoN field when fit... I was responding to "If anyone expected anything other than last then you need to give your head a wobble"... and if  Cook and Lambert had been fit we wouldn't have been so far adrift

2) Like Emil's performance over the weekend. Or Zmarzlik if the Poles had won

3)That's absolutely not what I said at all, what I said was Bomber's performance made GB's performance as a whole look a lot worse

Even with a fit Lambert and Cook, I don't think we should be challenging teams like Australia and Sweden. If we are to challenge at all, we need Woffinden.

The Poles were disappointing, but they still have several world-class riders outside of Zmarzlik. Outside of Woffinden, we don't...

If you think Harris's performance made us look worse, then that is up to you. I prefer to use facts like we couldn't take a point off anyone yesterday - even when we did get in front. Doesn't matter how far behind he was...

[Fromafar]

Harris has to be embarrassed by the standard of his equipment over the years.Its just a saga.You don’t see many other top men struggle so much.

[Buttons]

2 hours ago, Fromafar said:

Harris has to be embarrassed by the standard of his equipment over the years.Its just a saga.You don’t see many other top men struggle so much.

But Harris is not a top man anymore, he also rides in the Championship in uk, he is no longer in the GP's and is not at the same standard now.

[Fromafar]

5 minutes ago, Buttons said:

But Harris is not a top man anymore, he also rides in the Championship in uk, he is no longer in the GP's and is not at the same standard now.

He has always be mechanically inept.He has  entered and qualified for the GP Challenge so he  still thinks he is a GP rider ,and if you read his article in SS last week he has hope of emulating Hancock

Edited July 22, 2019 by Fromafar

[chunky]

24 minutes ago, Fromafar said:

He has always be mechanically inept.He has  entered and qualified for the GP Challenge so he  still thinks he is a GP rider ,and if you read his article in SS last week he has hope of emulating Hancock

Hancock? Tony Hancock was the blood donor, so Chris Harris must be the points donor...

Ouch...

[Terry]

51 minutes ago, chunky said:

Hancock? Tony Hancock was the blood donor, so Chris Harris must be the points donor...

Ouch...

A pint? That's very nearly an armful!

[tyler42]

9 hours ago, chunky said:

I see you are confused, Midland Red?

The poster was claiming that the cricket World Cup should qualify only two group winners directly to the final, and that the Champions League should include only "champions". Therefore, I wonder what he thought of the old speedway World Championship system, where you could scrape through each of the qualifying rounds (in as low as 11th spot), and then win a World Final?

Of course, those were the "good old days" when it was possible to become World Champion without winning a race...

Steve

Steve, I've just had a look at all British Finals throughout the 1970's. The only final you would have qualified if you finished 11th was the 71 final, where you needed to finish in the top 12. The rest of them were either top 4 or top 5 except for 73 final (8th) 74 final (10th) and the 79 final (10th) As for not winning a race and still becoming world champion. Unless I'm mistaken The there have been only three world finals between 1949 and 1994 where riders have scored 12 and even then I would imagine they would have won at least one race! 

[Terry]

I think Chunky meant rounds like the Commonwealth and Inter-continental final where the top 11 qualified.

[tyler42]

9 hours ago, Fromafar said:

Name the riders who will be competitive on World Stage in the next couple of years bar Woffy and Lambert.There is some young talent out there but they have along way to go as the U21 Team showed.

i think you're being a little unfair on Bewley. Before he had his crash. he was scoring very well in Poland. The same league as Lambert was in. He gave Lambert a good run for his money in the British Final and had a few good meetings in the world u21 world finals beating good riders along the way. That crash he had last year has stopped the progress he was making, but if you have natural talent like he has, then I'm sure he will get over it.

[James Carter]

I wasn’t able to watch this event live and just caught up this morning. Reading through the last 27 pages of comments at work has been highly entertaining. So well done to all involved. Not sure how Kenny Carter got shoe horned into the conversation though. My Thoughts:

Sometimes you just have to accept that something hasn’t worked and the SON is an example. No point trying to flog a dead horse. Just ditch it now. The Poles couldn’t be ar$ed with it in Wroclaw and there weren’t that many more there in Togliatti. 2-day speedway events just don’t work (Amsterdam 87?)

Just go back to the old style 4 team, 4 Rider WTC. Run both semis on the Saturday at different tracks in the same country and a Final on the Sunday. So in UK go KL, Poole & Belle Vue as an example. I wouldn’t guarantee the hosts a spot but if you had to make the event 5 team with 4 riders.

I just don’t buy the idea that the WTC was boring because Poland were so good. They are the top team but by no means unbeatable. They won 4 out of 8 WTC since it was re-hashed and 2 of them at home. Russia and Denmark would run them very close in a WTC and it would be far more interesting

GB. Got to sack Rossiter. I thought it might have been a mistake to take Bewley or A. Another due to his age but having seen just how bad Harris was then you might as well have taken me. Cook I think shouldn’t shoulder too much criticism. He tried his best and circumstances made him the number 1 when really he should have been in the pits making the tea  

Back to Russia for an SGP? FIM have never let a rubbish show of a track stop them before so it will probably get a SGP in 2020. I do think it was the perfect storm or a hot day, poor preparation and riders who didn’t know how to race the track

Final point. Poland. So glad that they messed up in heat 23 as I don’t for one minute believe that Magic was injured / poorly. That was tactical to bring Dudek in and it backfired because they bottle it big time in the final

 

[tyler42]

14 minutes ago, Terry said:

I think Chunky meant rounds like the Commonwealth and Inter-continental final where the top 11 qualified.

But to get to those meetings you had to qualify from the British Final . I'm sure i read somewhere, Chris Morton said it was the hardest meeting for him to qualify from. Maybe he meant the track was a bit too slick for his liking and not being that good from the gate he found it tougher.

[Terry]

I used to love the British finals of the 70's/80's. Great riders and brutal racing. It almost seems like a junior meeting now bar a few riders.

[noggin]

12 hours ago, Grachan said:

I'm not a great fan of this competition. I think it has many flaws. On it's own, it's fine, but as a replacement for the World Cup it's a disaster. I remember some epic World Cups, with some amazing races. This just doesn't live up to it, and it's pretty clear it's been done to stop Poland dominating.

Could they not, at least, revert to the World Cup every 4 years? I hope that happens but I won't hold my breath.

 

I thought they were going to alternate between WTC & SON

[OveFundinFan]

I worried where next years final going to be, Russia won so is it Tolgiatti again?  If it is I demand a rerun of the meeting - you know, like Brexit, dont like the winner so we will run it again until the ones we want to win do. .