f-s-p

I wouldnt go berserk or anything if you did... I'll post Norwegian news next year. Elgane has been given the U21 Scandinavian qualifier for 2009.

He's wearing the yellow jacket by then

Yep. And when I feel like it, I'll call Poshbloke and tell him I'm organizing one by myself here.

Inzell has it.

My "mole" at the conference said that Hugary has been dropped completely from the lineup. So I was a bit surprised that they still had one meeting in the FIM calendar. Daugavpils has done it's homework as an organizer and are getting the reward. Alltough they are a bit like Finland, on the edge of the map... Hungary will get their share of the UEM meetings for sure.

It was discussed about six months ago and someone said Rye was gonna maybe get it. Maybe they should do things a bit better. Daugavpils in Latvia has three FIM meetings next season...

I've just been told that there are 16 riders interested in the Finnish Individual title next sunday. They include Antti Aakko, Tommy Flyktman, Kai Lehtinen, Jouni Seppänen and probably Joni Kontoniemi on his "hometrack". Should be interesting enough as the weather seems to be playing in favour of us this time too.

Lets hijack this thread to announce that Lezsno will host the SWC round one and UK has been given round two with a tba as the location.

The 4by4 inch concrete that keeps the fence up. Nothing major...

Dont they just love that fence. I've linked it before but the pic was taken away later. They actually rode a WC-qualifier with that fence back in 2004. I think the meeting was even stopped once or twice to get some extra trackwork done.

I spent some time translating some of the Russian forum reply's, and the people there seemed to think that Aakko has been doing really well. Some excellent photography can be found there also, including this site. I just pointed and pushed some buttons, found some excellent stuff!

The Finnish Ice Racing Individual Championship final has once again emerged in to the calendar. It's supposed to be staged at Kuortane next sunday. It will be ridden (if it's gonna happen) on a frozen lake. Apparently the spring conference for league racing in Finland is supposed to take place at the same time at Tampere. It will be very interesting to see what they come up with. I've heard that five teams have entered the league with Seinäjoki, Kauhajoki, Lahti-Forssa, Kuusankoski and Pori. I dont have any specific info about the teams other than Katajisto has signed for Kauhajoki, Hautamäki has returned to Seinäjoki and Mäkelä is at Lahti. That leaves only the Lahti brothers for Kuusankoski as definate starters. Seinäjoki looks like the favourite at this time.

I said the big leagues... Sometimes you just kill me!

Hopefully yes, naturlich! Come to think of it I had a phone conversation with a fellow Finn who was at the Team World's, he said that there has definately been something positive going on at the Aakko camp. I just got back home, I was at Varkaus to see Kalle Katajisto and we had a chat. Alltough I'd say Doug understands nothing about good ice hockey , I saw a good game today between JYP and Kärpät at Jyväskylä's Hippos arena. It's (the site of the arena) now occupied by a Finnish baseball court and an ice sports complex, but as I've been led to understand they had better purposes for it in the 50's and 60's. Even if it was just longtrack.

Aakko to be a spoiler... I wonder. He had his both engines (read two) re-built after Sanok and judging by the pictures his second bike is now ready too. He's also shown speed and manouvers that have been missing for a while. But to actually mix it with the Russians I wonder. Zorn on the other has mixed it with them in the past couple of years while Aakko has been fading. There are signs of Aakko coming back but we'll see. He's only 28, I didn't know that until recently. Comparing to Serenius (which really cant be done) he still has time. Serenius has ridden in as many World finals/GP-series as I've had birthdays. Thats another thing realised recently. EDIT: Now I know why Zorn always has a hat on... He cant afford a haircut! EDIT2: I've started practising to challenge for a team place in next years team champs. Got myself new kevlars and all...

Are they the crap ones or the ones he used to score the only max for BV last season?

There was the television interview about him on SVT website (can probably still be found through earlier Toninho thread) after he got his sentence last year. One thing that I noticed was the massive amount of equipment he still had in his possession at the time. I can see this already, after making all the Allsvenskan riders look like beginners by the end of June he's gonna start riding the big leagues also.

Yeah, Matej Ferjan rules!

Wow! Aakko has won THE russian!

Wasn't this foreseen a few months ago in one of the "British hot prospects"-thread or similar. Bridger getting his head messed... EDIT: it was this one on page 7

When would it be safe to expect fixtures for the danish league? They have now added the fixture list to the DMU site but that only tells when teams are riding at home.

Something in the Swedish press about Posa admitting to a tactical error in his heat against Aakko... But Aakko won it, thats great. There are links to pictures in the isracing.net guestbook showing Aakko's bike with a steel coloured frame. Perhaps he's now managed to finish his new bike for the trips to Russia.

I was at the motorcycle show on saturday. 75 000 people is the new record number of visitors attending during four days. I didn't see a one single speedway bike, alltough the Finnish federation was very well represented and they had some video's running on all the motorcycle disciplines. Gotta start thinking how to get a bike there next year... I also did some detective work regarding next seasons Extraliiga. Lahti will be tracking Juha Mäkelä, Tomi Reima, Aarni Heikkilä, Janne Nyman and Joni Kitala in their lineup. Kuusankoski is looking to lose Aarnio (Berwick), Mäkelä (Lahti) and Juha Hautamäki is also without a team place. I'm told he hasn't even been approached yet by any club. Kuusankoski still has the Lahti brothers and they usually line up a decent foreigner so I think they will remain as a force to be reckoned with.

I think we have now Spiegal to wait as the thread starter and track visitor to put an end to all this...

They are MSJ has shipped them all to the UK