It's Not All About Winning Races!

[steve roberts]

I remember a "debate" on here some years ago when Bwitcher was claiming a rider's greatness was based on race wins? On the face of it that may be correct however one needs to look deeper and a truer picture tells a different story. Just reading in the latest "Backtrack" an interview with Bobby Schwartz who always thought of his team mate first (in particular Bernie Leigh at Smallmead) where he would purposely slow a race down allowing him to take the lead whilst covering him to achieve the best result for the team. Apparently Jan Andersson couldn't understand his ethic but, afteral, Jan wasn't the best exponent of team riding not until the twilight of his career anyway. Bobby also talks of tactical riding with his American team mates during succussful performance in World Pairs Finals where he took on the roll as covering allowing his team mate to take the flag.

Ronnie Moore was also a great exponent of slowing races down finishing second to his team mate as indicated by his accumulation of bonus points over the years suggest. Okay on the Individual World front winning was all important but again if one looks deeper points were often dropped when riders wished not to win particular races so as to get a better draw in the next round.

Like everything in life things are not always so straight forward and require deeper anlysis.

Edited August 10, 2021 by steve roberts

[Guest compost]

Supporting Reading in the 70's, never liked DJ or JD as they Never (or so it appeared from the terraces) bothered about their team-mates.  Only seemed interested in winning the heat.  Reckon we lost a number of points as they wouldn't work with the rest of the team. Another reason I never warmed to Per Jonsson as he to seemed just 'gate and go'.

[chunky]

5 hours ago, compost said:

Supporting Reading in the 70's, never liked DJ or JD as they Never (or so it appeared from the terraces) bothered about their team-mates.  Only seemed interested in winning the heat.  Reckon we lost a number of points as they wouldn't work with the rest of the team. Another reason I never warmed to Per Jonsson as he to seemed just 'gate and go'.

I never had a problem with DJ, but he was one rider who just seemed totally incapable of team riding!

[fatface]

6 hours ago, compost said:

Supporting Reading in the 70's, never liked DJ or JD as they Never (or so it appeared from the terraces) bothered about their team-mates.  Only seemed interested in winning the heat.  Reckon we lost a number of points as they wouldn't work with the rest of the team. Another reason I never warmed to Per Jonsson as he to seemed just 'gate and go'.

Surprised to read that about Per Jonsson. From an outsiders perspective, he seemed to have a great partnership with riders like Dave Mullet. There were a lot of top riders prematurely lost to the sport in that era, but I always thought in pure speedway terms, he still had the most left to give before his career was cut short. 

[steve roberts]

Hans Nielsen was another rider that winning races was not always the most important thing when riding for Oxford...the number of times I witnessed him shepherding his team mate home are too numerous to mention. A great team man of his and any other era.

[Sidney the robin]

11 hours ago, steve roberts said:

I remember a "debate" on here some years ago when Bwitcher was claiming a rider's greatness was based on race wins? On the face of it that may be correct however one needs to look deeper and a truer picture tells a different story. Just reading in the latest "Backtrack" an interview with Bobby Schwartz who always thought of his team mate first (in particular Bernie Leigh at Smallmead) where he would purposely slow a race down allowing him to take the lead whilst covering him to achieve the best result for the team. Apparently Jan Andersson couldn't understand his ethic but, afteral, Jan wasn't the best exponent of team riding not until the twilight of his career anyway. Bobby also talks of tactical riding with his American team mates during succussful performance in World Pairs Finals where he took on the roll as covering allowing his team mate to take the flag.

Ronnie Moore was also a great exponent of slowing races down finishing second to his team mate as indicated by his accumulation of bonus points over the years suggest. Okay on the Individual World front winning was all important but again if one looks deeper points were often dropped when riders wished not to win particular races so as to get a better draw in the next round.

Like everything in life things are not always so straight forward and require deeper anlysis.

Jan Andersson an ok guy Steve was a terrible team rider , an inside rider who could cut back but that was it.He cost Malcolm Holloway a few points over the years by being just selfish out for himself only never thinking of the team.I see that in later years at Reading where he was not always getting the best gates he later got exposed.

[Sidney the robin]

37 minutes ago, steve roberts said:

Hans Nielsen was another rider that winning races was not always the most important thing when riding for Oxford...the number of times I witnessed him shepherding his team mate home are too numerous to mention. A great team man of his and any other era.

Cox, Butler, Rasmussen, Dugard , Sorensen says it all Steve.

[Sidney the robin]

11 hours ago, steve roberts said:

I remember a "debate" on here some years ago when Bwitcher was claiming a rider's greatness was based on race wins? On the face of it that may be correct however one needs to look deeper and a truer picture tells a different story. Just reading in the latest "Backtrack" an interview with Bobby Schwartz who always thought of his team mate first (in particular Bernie Leigh at Smallmead) where he would purposely slow a race down allowing him to take the lead whilst covering him to achieve the best result for the team. Apparently Jan Andersson couldn't understand his ethic but, afteral, Jan wasn't the best exponent of team riding not until the twilight of his career anyway. Bobby also talks of tactical riding with his American team mates during succussful performance in World Pairs Finals where he took on the roll as covering allowing his team mate to take the flag.

Ronnie Moore was also a great exponent of slowing races down finishing second to his team mate as indicated by his accumulation of bonus points over the years suggest. Okay on the Individual World front winning was all important but again if one looks deeper points were often dropped when riders wished not to win particular races so as to get a better draw in the next round.

Like everything in life things are not always so straight forward and require deeper anlysis.

Schwartz was a terrific rider not the quickest but he had eyes in the back of his head he had brilliant trackcraft. Like you said Mirac was awesome  have to say probably the Grahame/ Collins.   P/C / Mort      and the Moran brothers were the best partnerships i ever saw.

[Guest compost]

17 hours ago, chunky said:

I never had a problem with DJ, but he was one rider who just seemed totally incapable of team riding!

Which supports my comment.  It wasn't that DJ (and JD) weren't good but that they never appeared to support their team-mates.

 

16 hours ago, falcace said:

Surprised to read that about Per Jonsson. From an outsiders perspective, he seemed to have a great partnership with riders like Dave Mullet. There were a lot of top riders prematurely lost to the sport in that era, but I always thought in pure speedway terms, he still had the most left to give before his career was cut short. 

Just my impression, but you are right about how sad it was that his career was cut short as it was.

[Grachan]

I don't particularly remember Per Jonsson being a team rider at Reading, but one way I would never describe him is "gate and go". My best memories of Per Jonsson are watching him stalk a race leader for three and a half laps and then going past them on the final bend. He even did this to Jimmy Nilsen in a World Final.

Dave Mullet's big partnership at Reading, from memory, was with Jeremy Doncaster. Those two became something of a 5-1 pairing for the racers - at Smallmead at least.

John Davis was a brilliant team man at Swindon, but maybe he was amore mature then than he was at Reading.

[steve roberts]

Ole Olsen was another who would team ride however the difference being he had to be first across the line!

[Sidney the robin]

2 hours ago, Grachan said:

I don't particularly remember Per Jonsson being a team rider at Reading, but one way I would never describe him is "gate and go". My best memories of Per Jonsson are watching him stalk a race leader for three and a half laps and then going past them on the final bend. He even did this to Jimmy Nilsen in a World Final.

Dave Mullet's big partnership at Reading, from memory, was with Jeremy Doncaster. Those two became something of a 5-1 pairing for the racers - at Smallmead at least.

John Davis was a brilliant team man at Swindon, but maybe he was amore mature then than he was at Reading.

Per who i saw alot of from 1984 onwards really upped his game in 1987,  showing us the rider that the great Bob Radford had always predicted.His partnership’s with Holloway and Andersson was quite solid but later in his career he certainly was one of the better riders from the back.Per was cruelly struck down and the sport was robbed of seeing him approach his peak his benefit meeting just showed us all how much he was loved by the Reading fans.

[Sidney the robin]

15 hours ago, steve roberts said:

Hans Nielsen was another rider that winning races was not always the most important thing when riding for Oxford...the number of times I witnessed him shepherding his team mate home are too numerous to mention. A great team man of his and any other era.

If you look back Steve,   Hans from 1984- 92  averaged over 11 points a meeting four times in that time .He scored  102 full maximums and occured  116  B/ POINTS .It just shows from such a dominant points machine  that he occured all of those B/POINTS for the TEAM the stats surprised me somewhat.

Edited August 11, 2021 by Sidney the robin

[steve roberts]

8 hours ago, Sidney the robin said:

If you look back Steve,   Hans from 1984- 92  averaged over 11 points a meeting four times in that time .He scored  102 full maximums and occured  116  B/ POINTS .It just shows from such a dominant points machine  that he occured all of those B/POINTS for the TEAM the stats surprised me somewhat.

How many paid maximums did Hans achieve Sid?

[chunky]

11 hours ago, steve roberts said:

Ole Olsen was another who would team ride however the difference being he had to be first across the line!

You got that right...

[chunky]

1 hour ago, steve roberts said:

How many paid maximums did Hans achieve Sid?

It really changed from the time he went to Oxford, Steve, as there weren't many before than.

1984 - 10F, 9P
1985 - 17F, 11P
1986 - 22F, 9P
1987 - 21F, 9P
1988 - 15F, 4P
1989 - 9F, 5P
1990 - 1F, 4P
1991 - 4F, 1P
1992 - 3F, 1P

Considering he was still averaging well over 10, that's not many from 1990-92...

[norbold]

Talking of riders seeing their team mates home, we shouldn't forget the hero of Rye House, Kelvin Mullarkey. He was a master at the art of team riding. For example in the three years, 1978-1980, he scored 45, 84 and 69 bonus points respectively.

[steve roberts]

22 minutes ago, chunky said:

It really changed from the time he went to Oxford, Steve, as there weren't many before than.

1984 - 10F, 9P
1985 - 17F, 11P
1986 - 22F, 9P
1987 - 21F, 9P
1988 - 15F, 4P
1989 - 9F, 5P
1990 - 1F, 4P
1991 - 4F, 1P
1992 - 3F, 1P

Considering he was still averaging well over 10, that's not many from 1990-92...

Thanks for that. Hans was desperate to be part of a winning team and the Oxford Promotion gave him that missing criteria that he so craved and I guess that was reflected in his bonus point tally. Yes he wasn't so dominant in his later years at Cowley as things started to tail off but perhaps one factor was that the heat formula decreed that there be a top scorers nominated heat? Without checking I wonder if maximums generally were on the downward turn due to the example I gave plus fixed gates (can never remember when they were introduced)?

[Sidney the robin]

2 hours ago, steve roberts said:

How many paid maximums did Hans achieve Sid?

Great stuff from Chunky Steve , interesting reading  Nielsen 84/ 92 ( his peak ) ——— 102 max —— 53 paid max - total —- 155.      Olsen 1970/ 78( his peak) ———- 116 max———18 paid max  _total ____ 134.  that does tell you something.

[chunky]

1 minute ago, steve roberts said:

Thanks for that. Hans was desperate to be part of a winning team and the Oxford Promotion gave him that missing criteria that he so craved and I guess that was reflected in his bonus point tally. Yes he wasn't so dominant in his later years at Cowley as things started to tail off but perhaps one factor was that the heat formula decreed that there be a top scorers nominated heat? Without checking I wonder if maximums generally were on the downward turn due to the example I gave plus fixed gates (can never remember when they were introduced)?

Yeah, I can never remember when things like that were introduced, but it is funny considering his averages were still up there. However, I just looked at the stats again:

From 1984 to to 1988, he rode between 41 and 50 meetings a year.
In 1989 and 1990 he rode 34 meetings.
In 1991 he rode 24 meetings, and in 1992 he rode 25.

So, BIG difference there...