Humphrey Appleby

Of course it is. Even high profile athletes got away with it for years.

I couldn't care less if people take soft drugs recreationally. Plenty do, and I suspect if you conducted a random test of the whole UK population, you'd find a high percentage who do indulge in it and function perfectly well in their jobs. So not sure why people expect speedway riders to be any different. Of course, it's different to be under the influence if you're actually riding - the same as alcohol - although the likes of cannabis hangs around in the body long after it's had any deleterious effect. It sounds like Garrity doing harder stuff though, which is a different matter.

There wasn't anything like the competition from foreign leagues in those days, nor the Speedway Grand Prix that required complicated travel schedules. The Daily Mirror Tournament, was I think a one-off as well.

I think very few countries could put out competitive test match teams, which would require anywhere from 6 to 8 riders. It would essentially preclude countries (e.g. Australia and the US) where it's impractical for them to stage home matches, whilst riding matches at neutral venues would probably be a financial disaster. As it stands, people have already pointed out the flaws of the Best Pairs format where your team is only riding once every 3 heats or so during a meeting. There might be a case for a handful of countries to stage a separate Test Championship linking bi-lateral home and away matches/series together over a season or even longer. But when you'd find time in an already crowded calendar is another matter.

No doubt, but it's the trade-off between scoring points and making money in the here-and-now, and the possibility of scoring more points and more money in the future. All I can say is that I'm glad I didn't choose speedway rider as my career...

Didn't he also have an idea to put a chicane in the bends...

Problem is that Gate 4 can sometimes be the best gate on certain tracks and in certain conditions!

Rider averages will never be an accurate reflection of true ability because - at least in Britain - each riding position meets the opposition riders a different number of times and under different circumstances. Reserves in particular tend to have easier races in comparison to heat leaders, and the No. 2 position in the classic heat formula generally had easier opposition than the rest of the top 5, although the downside was that Heat 8 was always the obvious place to do a (double) tactical substitution. But as with cricket, there's all sorts of factors such as when you're put into bat or expected to bowl. Case in point is Freddie Flintoff who's batting and bowling averages were never exceptional by classic all-rounder standards, yet every team in the world would have been happy for him to play for them.

Usual story of football teams living beyond their means and then losing tenure or title of their own ground, thereby leaving them at the mercy of property developers. Beyond foolish as the ground is often their only tangible asset, but since when did football and sense go together?

Can't think it would be that difficult to come up with a compromise format with 3+1 rider teams. Or run the Pairs event on Day 1, with a proper World Cup on Day 2.

In most World Cup type tournaments, the finalists have usually not competed against all the other teams earlier in the tournament, and have often not met themselves until the Final. It's therefore not possible to say they've met the strongest teams, regardless of their early results. In the standard Best Pairs format, every team will have already ridden against every team before reaching the Final - in fact twice in the SON. It's therefore a bit farcical to decide the result on the basis of a contrived scoring system after 43 previous heats. You could have still have a Final, but give the team scoring more points in the earlier rounds the advantage of a point or something.

Best Pairs competitions by their nature are not well suited to knockout or winner-takes-all formats. There's, what, a one-third chance in each heat of each team scoring the same number of points unless you have a contrived scoring system, so you can really only go on accumulated points over a number of heats. Ultimately it's a flawed format for a major (televised) team competition.

There's never been the money to make the SGP a full-time circus, nor probably enough tracks able and willing to host the number of rounds necessary to make it full time circus. You'd probably need to be running every week from April to September, which is 26 rounds or so (although some of those could be the SoN). I think you'd end-up with spectator fatigue seeing the same few riders week after week, even putting aside the issues that you'd ruin the Polish leagues.

Simple matter of economics. Poland gets better crowds and presumably commands better sponsorship than the SGP.

Depends on the rules of the national championships. If you're a dual-national or dual-licence, then why shouldn't be able to ride in both? Might even be a requirement of holding a particular licence.