rusky

And of course its once a fortnight ( but regular), so over a season becomes cheaper still

Only on some Rob. And those ones were restricted view this year too.

Obviously not in the right Hotel Charlieboy......

Olsen didn't do the Prague track - Tomas Topinka is your man there

A very specialised Motor Insurer (especially kit cars & modifieds), and a reasonably large employer in West Norfolk http://www.adrianflux.co.uk/

But it is doable HA with a bit of planning. Went over with Tomas Topinka to Vojens for the Gold Bar back in 1996. We left straight after the meeting, went to King's Lynn to drop off the dirty bike and get a clean one, and then straight up to Bradford where we were there by 5PM for the Bradford Vs King's Lynn meeting.

But the Fizzy was a lay down Grachan - bending the rules again....lol

2-stroke uprights ?

They were a lot more consistent, and didn't need anywhere the constant adjustments of a cable based system. They were also far more resilient in the unfortunate case of an accident. Both Dennis & Henka also liked the feel of them compared to the cable systems, and over a lifetime would possibly of been a cheaper option than cable systems

Henka Gustafsson was using them back around 1989..... With the hydraulic clutch he was dynamite out of the start, and at the time he was developing them with Mikael Blixt, and he made every gate in the 2 or so meetings before they were banned, At the time he and Dennis Lofqvist were the only riders to have them. There were lots of riders who wanted them at the time, but they weren't readily available.

Growing up watching the King's Lynn Stars on a Saturday night at Saddlebow Road, there were riders who never seemed to turn up. Maybe my memory was playing tricks, but there were 2 who never seemed to come, namely Barry Briggs & Ivan Mauger, yet they always seemed to make an appearance in Germany on the Sunday afternoon. There were also a significant number who did not take part in the second half on the flimsiest of excuses.

Standard practise, in the event of a failure another test is run - a B sample if you will, and the lower reading is taken as the accepted reading. I'm sure that this will be what happened in this case, especially given that everybody else tests passed

Problem comes that numerous other people, riders & officials, all passed the test that was administered by the same official with the same equipment whereas Darcy failed on multiple occassions

There has been speedway in this stadium before (1991 if memory serves me right), when Graham Drury & Ian Thomas took a number of riders there. These riders were there as part of the opening celebrations for that stadium. There was a good crowd there for an evening of mixed events. The track was small, and built on clay so was quite difficult to ride, but there was some reasonable racing. As I remember it was a reasonable distance out of Barelona centre.

Think you mean 'Clearly having a whole day to re-hydrate is more than enough for all riders, except one when the meeting is rearranged for the afternoon when the testing is done earlier, ' given that other riders and meeting officials all passed the test

The irony is that the reason for closure is the cost of refurbishment. If that stadium needs refurbishment they probably better hadn't look too hard at any of the stadiums here in the UK....

I too am a little confused by the use of Go-Pro camera's and the like. A few years ago there was the rage of putting Shark fins onto helmets, and I'm fairly sure they were banned on safety grounds. I would of thought that cameras were similar in context to the shark fins. You would definitely think that the camera mount could be considered as altering the structure of the helmet....

HA, I can assure you that if being Race Director was a few days, every 2 weeks, for half a year Tony would not be stepping down !!! To do this Job to the level that Tony has committed to is pretty much full time from early March to late October, the bit between, could realistically be considered as few days work, every 2 weeks (definition of a few, probably 7 or 8 days). The amount of documentation that surrounds these events is phenomenal, and is extremely time consuming on its own. Whoever follows Tony has a hard time in store for them - it is certainly not the easy ride that many think. Ghostwalker, Do really believe that the track racing clubs will break away ? This rumour has been doing the rounds as long as I can remember (measured in 10's of years). I really don't think that the riders in particular would want the international isolation that would most likely come with that, if it did come together. I for one have my doubts - as do many others.

That is true there are flights to other locations, albeit on an infrequent basis. Onward travel from most of those airports mentioned is not easy either. New science, Tony frequently has to wait in Arlanda Stockholm airport for anything up to 6 or 7 hours for a flight on occasions. I will ask him the specifics of his journey home from Cardiff at the weekend, but I seem to remember it's quite an intense journey, not something most of us would want to do do every 2 weeks for most of the year, to several times throughout the off season for various meetings and seminars.

Indeed...on Gotland would be more specific, in a small village outside of the main town on the island, Visby.

Tony is very well respected within SVEMO at all levels and as such that may well be an option for him.. And yes travel is pretty difficult from where Tony lives, and is substantially less to Norrkoping than any of the SGP locations with the possible exception of Stockholm. Even after Cardiff his journey home will be very time consuming and will take him virtually a full day, with a significant waiting period in Stockholm. Luckily its now the Holiday season in Sweden so the number of flights to his home has increased from the Swedish mainland. Out of season there are far fewer flights or a 4.5 hour (I think) ferry ride. However, the area that Tony lives in is an extremely nice part of the world - an area that many people would like to live I would suggest.

And there in lies the problem. Eurosport has given Speedway such an opportunity to exposure to all kinds of bike fans, and as such a commentator is needed who is not preaching to the converted so to speak. For what its worth, I felt Jack was doing that well and was passing on information that the casual viewer would find interesting, and informative. The trouble is that most of us who have been followers for any period of time will already know that information so we see it as a negative. As many on here have already alluded to, Eurosport have undoubtedly removed the wrong one of the commentating pair........

A couple for starters: Many years ago we were on a coach from King's Lynn to Eastbourne, and we arrived at Eastbourne where there was one guy 'organising' the car park and he stuck our coach in the most awkward place imaginable. Our coach driver was less than impressed and a discussion started. However, quite a few of our number had come straight from work to get the coach. They were lab technicians for British Sugar (I think it was) and they had there work clothes with them - white lab coats. They promptly donned the lab coats and proceeded to 'arrange' all the incoming cars for them - it was very funny I was doing a spot of driving for an international tour where there were about 14 or 15 riders of varying nationalities and it involved a ferry ride. One of the number, an English International who had a certain reputation with the ladies, had just started dating a very attractive young lady who was the star of a soft porn magazine that month (think Penthouse, Playboy etc.)Said international was very keen to show everybody these pictures relentlessly but after a while it became a bit tiresome and people were starting to get a little bored with it all. After a while this magazine went missing, and the said rider was more than a little angry. Several hours later the magazine re-appeared and the pages of with the young lady were now stuck together - I'll leave you to imagine how they were stuck together other than to say it was the handy work (if you'll excuse the pun) of another English international. The guy whose magazine it was, was less than impressed...

On the Simon Mayo drivetime show on Radio 2 tonight, the Friday night sports fixture was vintage scrambling. The guy who was talking about it was quite keen to emphasis the sound of the 500 singles, and the SMELL OF CASTROL R. He was saying these were the 2 things that people would enjoy if they came to watch.

And he is supporting a charity event in and around West Norfolk. Please excuse the EDP for having him as a King's Lynn rider.... http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/king_s_lynn_speedway_riders_get_set_for_a_charity_beach_run_1_3498817