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Speedway Grand Prix

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On 8/7/2019 at 4:25 PM, Robbie B said:

I know that everyone is trying to remember whether they saw the 1976 Grand Prix Final staged at White City stadium on TV or not.

A few years ago I brought copies of the TV Times on eBay on DVD in a PDF format and I do have those from 1976. I can confirm that World of Sport showed this meeting at 3:10 p.m. on Saturday 7 August.

in reading the Speedway Mail match report of the meeting it states that after Malcolm Simmons broke the White City track record in heat 1 the old track record was broken on a further 10 occasions. Also that David Hamilton who had planned to use a mic from the centre green found out hat t was not compatible with the White City PA system despite it working perfectly earlier in the afternoon during tests.

 

Other programmes shown alongside the speedway on World of Sport that day included 12:35 International Show Jumping - and German F1 Grand Prix 1:20 the ITV Seven from Newmarket and Redcar 3:10 Speedway Grand Prix Final 4:00 Wrestling 4:55 Results Service

Ah! The days of 'World of Sport'...personally I feel that when ITV cancelled the programme it was one of many issues that started the decline of speedway in this country and was no longer regarded as a high profile sport that it once enjoyed during it's last "Golden Era' of the 1970's early 80's.

Edited by steve roberts
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2 hours ago, steve roberts said:

Ah! The days of 'World of Sport'...personally I feel that when ITV cancelled the programme it was one of many issues that started the decline of speedway in this country and was no longer regarded as a high profile sport that it once enjoyed during it's last "Golden Era' of the 1970's early 80's.

Yes, Frisian canal vaulting was also never the same afterwards... :D

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Surely footage of the 1976 Grand Prix is out there, somewhere. It was a great tournament. Obviously it shrunk in size after the initial two years. Each top flight track staged a round. In 1978 and '79 British riders' scores also counted towards British World Championship qualification. In 1980 I think there were just four rounds. But the summer of '76 was a special year, sponsors the Daily Mirror having reports of each meeting the following day. I even filled in the score grid published in Speedway Star for the 1977 rounds. Magic days.  

Edited by moxey63
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6 hours ago, moxey63 said:

Surely footage of the 1976 Grand Prix is out there, somewhere. It was a great tournament. Obviously it shrunk in size after the initial two years. Each top flight track staged a round. In 1978 and '79 British riders' scores also counted towards British World Championship qualification. In 1980 I think there were just four rounds. But the summer of '76 was a special year, sponsors the Daily Mirror having reports of each meeting the following day. I even filled in the score grid published in Speedway Star for the 1977 rounds. Magic days.  

For me, 1976 was special too, and I thought the GP was brilliant. Unfortunately, it soon lost its way, and I'm not sure why. I don't think there was any need to change things the way they did (perhaps the riders complained a full series was too hard on them, I don't know), but I think it started deteriorating the following year when they moved from a summer series to later in the year...

Steve

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