Speedway Thread

[Krazy8]

And people wonder why there's less and less interest for Speedway in this country. Piss up and brewery spring to mind here...

It's an embarrassment to be honest, the sports crying out for a Barry Hearn type individual to come in and overhaul the whole set up. How can you have a British world champion who doesn't want to ride in the British league?

Doyle, Holder and Zagar are all riding here but there's a seemingly endless list of world class riders who choose to avoid the British elite league in favour of Poland and Sweden(and you can't blame them, their leagues are so much more professional).

The Leszno team team this year includes Pedersen, Sayfutdinov, Zengota, Kildemand and Pawlicki. The British teams will include a number of riders who should really be racing in the premier league.

I think they have squads of riders as well, so if one gets injured they don't have to borrow from another team. It's laughable that a team already in the grand final can lend riders to a team competing in the other semi.

Whilst I'm on a bit of a rant, is it that hard to have all the races on the same night? Surely that would make it more appealing for the Grand Prix racers?

If these issues are obvious to the members of 1FF, why aren't they to the BSPA?

 

[Aberstone]

To me, it makes sense to have either Thursday or Friday night as a Speedway night in the UK (I would plump for the latter). Doesn't clash with Poland (Sunday), Sweden (Tuesday) or the Grand Prix.

Unfortunately there's a stigma attached where it's deemed to be boring because it involves bikes going around an oval track. My argument and one that really needs to be plugged by the BSPA is that you can see the entire track and provided there's grip all across the track, you'll see more overtaking in 4 laps of a Speedway race than 50 at another unnamed motorsport (*cough* F1 *cough*)

 

[Tom_CUFC]

I am all for a fixed race night, in the top division at least, and I think they are slowly working towards that because it seems to have been heavily implied that from next season there will be two racenights in the EL, presuambly with the intention to whittle it down to 1 in a few years. However there are issues, primarily around most teams not owning their stadium and having to deal with the greyhounds, but also around Sky (if they stay involved going forward) and then the discussion about what night. You really have 4 options, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, but there are problems with each:

Monday - Gap between Poland, Sweden and other Saturday international events
Wednesday - Not a particularly crowd friendly night
Thursday - As above + Premier League clashes
Friday - Premier League + GP practice clashes

Friday is clearly the most appealing night of the lot but I would suggest produces the most difficulties to overcome. The easiest is Wednesday but is the least attractive, and Monday is probably the most risky with losing riders at short notice. The best solution is probably Friday non-GP weeks and Thursday GP weeks, but, you've got to deal with the PL clubs then and basically make them ride Saturday/Sunday (unless they scrap doubling up which I wouldn't be opposed to but there aren't enough riders and the sport isn't rolling in enough money to make that work), and the relationship between the EL and the PL is virtually non-existant so it's hard to see that happening.

Whilst we have an association run by the promoters we will never get any really perfect solutions to anything because there will always be conflicts of interest. It needs an independent body to take a hold of the sport and run a hard line with it, "This is when the top division races, this is when the second division races, this is when the third division races, pick your league or close", but that doesn't seem to go down well with most speedway fans.

 

[Aberstone]

I hope somebody else watched the Grand Prix from Warsaw last night? Talk about a contrast from last year, the track was near enough perfect. From Heat 10 onwards, there were dirt lines appearing everywhere, great viewing for the spectators. I'm a massive Pete Kildemand fan but he does need to reign in it, at times he's just reckless.

Great stuff from Woffy to win it, Freddy Lindgren also impressive in what is likely his last appearance in the Speedway GP this year.

 

[Krazy8]

I hope somebody else watched the Grand Prix from Warsaw last night? Talk about a contrast from last year, the track was near enough perfect. From Heat 10 onwards, there were dirt lines appearing everywhere, great viewing for the spectators. I'm a massive Pete Kildemand fan but he does need to reign in it, at times he's just reckless.

Great stuff from Woffy to win it, Freddy Lindgren also impressive in what is likely his last appearance in the Speedway GP this year.

Yeah I caught up with this this morning, saw the first 19 heats yesterday then had to switch over for the bloody Eurovision and that woman with the messed up face. Agree about the racing though, thought it was brilliant, best in the gp's for a while.

Nice to see Chris Holder leading the standings, not really done anything spectacular just picking up the points. Agree on Kildemand as well, great rider to watch.

 

[Tom_CUFC]

Was away on Saturday so missed it but it sounded like a belter, critical they sorted it out this year. Good first two rounds for Woffinden, didn't ride well in Slovenia but still managed to get double figures, and then to win on Saturday, where if memory serves he hasn't got a great record on the temp tracks, was critical. Impossible to see past him as long as he doesn't get injured.

Said as much about Kildemand after his win in round 1, love watching the guy, great entertainment, but you know for every time he blasts around the outside to go around someone he's going to throw himself off the bike. He's still relatively young and inexperienced at the top level though so I've no doubt he'll improve as the year goes on and be a constant in the series for the next few years.

Good start again for my team Birmingham, looks like we're going to have to cope without Tom Perry for a while though who got a bad injury last night. Some outstanding youngsters in the National League this year, Bewley at Belle Vue and Parkinson-Blackburn at the Brummies being the brightest lights so far.

Picked up a couple of meetings so far this year and been hampered in getting to a couple of others, hopefully a bit of sunny weather soon will allow me to chalk up a few more before I bugger off on holiday and then come back into a very busy month of speedway in July.

 

[Krazy8]

As if it isn't bad enough supporting the Swindon football team, the speedway side's now gone and lost home and away to Leicester ffs

 

[Murphy]

Supreme ride from Danny King in the British Final this evening. One clean sweep on the outside at the end of the 1st lap won it for him. Looks very promising (as does Robert Lambert).

 

[Aberstone]

Lambert's going to be special.

 

[ccfctommy]

Anyone watching Cov Bees at Swindon on Sky?

 

[Aberstone]

Only watched the first heat, comfortable win for the Robins.

 

[ccfctommy]

Yeah, Bees got hammered!

 

[Krazy8]

Only watched the first heat, comfortable win for the Robins.

 

[Tom_CUFC]

Anyone else heading to Cardiff on Saturday? One of my favourite weekends of the year. Don't expect Woffinden to win, his record isn't great around Cardiff, but he should still rack up double figures. If Harris has another solid meeting (7-9 points) that will probably cement his spot in the World Cup team with Nicholls and Cook woefully out of form, and hopefully Danny King can get a race win but I suspect he'll struggle.

The Poles have never gone well around Cardiff (too small for their liking I guess), can probably rule out the Swedes (although Lindgren is riding well but again I don't ever remember him doing much at Cardiff), Pedersen and Zagar aren't in great GP form, Iversen won last year but to be honest until a great ride in the final he'd been fairly pedestrian and is struggling a bit this season as well, and Kildemand will probably win 2 races and throw himself into the barriers another 2 times, so hard to commit to him. So my 4 for the final are Woffinden, Holder, Hancock and Doyle (hardly an outlandish prediction), with Hancock taking it.

 

[Krazy8]

Anyone else heading to Cardiff on Saturday? One of my favourite weekends of the year. Don't expect Woffinden to win, his record isn't great around Cardiff, but he should still rack up double figures. If Harris has another solid meeting (7-9 points) that will probably cement his spot in the World Cup team with Nicholls and Cook woefully out of form, and hopefully Danny King can get a race win but I suspect he'll struggle.

The Poles have never gone well around Cardiff (too small for their liking I guess), can probably rule out the Swedes (although Lindgren is riding well but again I don't ever remember him doing much at Cardiff), Pedersen and Zagar aren't in great GP form, Iversen won last year but to be honest until a great ride in the final he'd been fairly pedestrian and is struggling a bit this season as well, and Kildemand will probably win 2 races and throw himself into the barriers another 2 times, so hard to commit to him. So my 4 for the final are Woffinden, Holder, Hancock and Doyle (hardly an outlandish prediction), with Hancock taking it.

Just watched the first half hour before the racing starts and I've already decided to go next year, atmosphere looks incredible!

 

[Murphy]

So close for Woffinden. 2nd place in the final, another bad start unfortunately otherwise he might have beaten Lindback, who in fairness had an inspired evening. Still, closes the gap on Hancock a bit more which is good news!

Also good to see Danny King get a heat win as well towards the end, unlucky to miss out on the semis.

 

[Tom_CUFC]

Very good meeting last night, best I can remember at Cardiff, after the Warsaw fiasco last year they appear to have got the hang of these temporary tracks now and it's giving the riders more trust in the surface allowing them to race harder. Atmosphere was decent too, understand the crowd was up on last year and over 40k which is good, felt like there were a few more Poles in and around this year compared to last year, first time they've really been vocal at Cardiff since Gollob retired.

Ride of the night from Danny King, Woffy will be happy with his return, Harris, dreadful, out of the World Cup with that probably. Deserved win for Lindback, best rider all through the night.

Now bring on Manchester in 3 weeks time! That's going to be a hell of a weekend, if the weather behaves.

 

[Aberstone]

Danny King has booked his place in the World Cup squad with his performance last night, it was Belle Vue all over again in Heat 19 - Bartosz Zmarzlik glanced over as he saw King coming past him on the outside, he must have been as stunned as everybody else watching.

Happy for AB, his bike looked fast all evening and Woffy gaining 5 points on Greg was a handsome return.

I'll be in Manchester too for the World Cup. No rain please!

 

[ccfctommy]

Happy for Danny King winning his heat. Gutted for Bomber, nothing wen't right for him.

 

[ccfctommy]

I'm at Coventry Bees vs Poole Pirates.

Poole have Bjarne Pedesen as a reserve!!!

 

[Tom_CUFC]

Anyone else heading up to Manchester this weekend, thoroughly looking forward to it and it looks like the weather is going to hold up as well.

Should be two cracking meetings, and again the race off might be the better of the two. The US will just be the Greg Hancock show obviously but it should be pretty tight between the other 3, I can see Russia coming out on top and that's what I'm hoping for, more chances we get to see Emil the better....

As for Saturday, you'd think it'll be Poland, although the decision to drop Janowski (in particular) for KK is a bit of a gamble. Sweden were excellent on Tuesday but it was on Ljung's home track and I don't think he'll fare as well here. Lindback should go well, Jonsson and Lindgren have I think both ridden at the track which will help, so they should be in the mix but I think they'll fall just short. It'll then be between us and the race off winner for bronze probably, if it's Russia then that more than likely means the Laguta's have dialled into the track and I expect them to be closer to Sweden (if not ahead) than us. If it's either the Danes (assuming they use the same 4) or the Aussies then I think we'll give them a good run, but we'll need 12+ each from Woffinden and Lambert in all likelyhood.

 

[Krazy8]

Silver medal, brilliant performance that. Really enjoyed the meeting as a whole as well, thought the racing really picked up towards the end. The 'other' Brits showed what they can do as well, shut the critics up (Jason Doyle ) that's for sure!

 

[Aberstone]

Doyle's comments were probably taken out of context but it was still funny to beat the Aussies.

Really enjoyed the weekend in Manchester, the race-off wasn't a great spectacle with Greg Hancock not riding for the US and there being little grip on the outside leading to stale races where gating was essential (can't knock Doyle for his 15 point maximum though).

Last night was just surreal, granted we had the joker and Sweden didn't but I never imagined us getting any higher than 3rd. I think the stadium erupted after Heats 16 and 19 which Craig Cook and Danny King won respectively. Not sure what happened to Antonio Lindback, his bike setup has been perfect recently and he started off with plenty of speed but just fell apart after the first heat. Plenty of jovial, if slightly inebriated Poles near me on the stand by turns 3 and 4 - they enjoyed the occasion, plenty of handshakes and the like.

 

[Krazy8]

Tai Woffinden's back in the elite league then, riding for Wolves for the rest of the season. Guess this is down to them having a shot at the title as opposed to him suddenly wanting to race in Britain but it's nice to see nonetheless.

 

[Tom_CUFC]

It's partly that and partly because his Swedish and Polish team aren't going to make the playoffs, so in a few weeks time he'd just be riding in the GPs. There was chat at the World Cup that Belle Vue are trying to sign him for next season, and that he's keen to ride there, but obviously that's going to depend on the structure of the league which could be anything still at this point.

Double header at Wolves on bank holiday Monday, will probably head over there as a good opportunity to see him get 10 rides.

 

[Tom_CUFC]

Cracking second leg to the Elite League grand final last night, heat 13 was a classic, Karlsson brilliant on those faster engines, and Worrall beating Woffy and Clegg pipping Worrall the other two highlights. By far the best track in the country, and it's up there with the best in the world (Bydgoszcz and Torun for what it's wurth). If all UK speedway was like last night, on and off track, it'd be thriving.

Shame Doyley is injured, deserved world champion he would have been. Respect Hancock but don't particularly like him, even more so after the World Cup this year, no denying how phenomenal h8s achievements on a bike at 47 are though. Expect Woffy to come back stronger next year, hopefully Emil gets a wildcard), sounds like it may be a possibility.

Off to the first leg of Birmingham's playoff semi, we should cruise past Cradley and the face a playoff and knockout cup final against Eastbourne, which should be a thriller. We've been incredible all season with such a young team, Jack Smith and Jack Parkinson-Blackburn (only 16) will go very far, I just fear we'll get undone by Eastbourne's trick track, although they are a very good team in their own right as their recent win at Kent proved.

Here's to a good end to the season and hopefully, for once, a productive winter AGM, the sport really needs it.

 

[Murphy]

Lakeside Hammers not competing in the Elite League next year after failing to reach an agreement (as yet) with the owners of the Arena Essex Raceway.

 

[Aberstone]

Lakeside Hammers not competing in the Elite League next year after failing to reach an agreement (as yet) with the owners of the Arena Essex Raceway.

Rockets and Somerset joining the revamped Premiership. Speaking of the former, we're going for it with all these geriatrics. Scott Nicholls, Bomber, Davey Watt and Stuart Robson. May as well just hand us the title now, who needs reserves!?

 

[Krazy8]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOFAB7yAHy9/

 

[Aberstone]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOFAB7yAHy9/

Wow. That could have been rather serious.

Thoughts on the Robins side ahead of this season Krazy? Jason Doyle's huge average doesn't leave much behind but Nick Morris and Adam Ellis ride hard and should be decent contributors.